


As the world rushes on, I'm left spinning.

by Birds_Are_My_Jam_Fam (Penny_doodles), Penny_doodles



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Abused Morality | Patton Sanders, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Age Regression/De-Aging, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, American Sign Language, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anorexia, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Asexual Character, Asexual Morality | Patton Sanders, Asexual Relationship, Asexuality, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Logic | Logan Sanders, Autistic Morality | Patton Sanders, Bad Parenting, Bed-Wetting, But he's not 'evil' either, Cancer, Cutting, Depression, Diapers, Disability, Disabled Character, Don't Like Don't Read, Eating Disorders, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Heavy Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I mean he's not nice, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Minor Character Death, Morality | Patton Sanders Needs a Hug, Morality | Patton Sanders-centric, My First Fanfic, Non-Sexual Age Play, Nonverbal Communication, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Platonic Analogical - Freeform, Platonic Logince - Freeform, Platonic Moxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Siblings, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Service Dogs, Slow Burn, Sorry Not Sorry, Sorta Sympathetic Deceit, Suicidal Thoughts, Tags Are Hard, Terminal Illnesses, Thumb-sucking, Violence, autistic remy sanders, hard of hearing character, platonic royality - Freeform, very slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-13 10:56:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 20
Words: 65,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21493168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penny_doodles/pseuds/Birds_Are_My_Jam_Fam, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penny_doodles/pseuds/Penny_doodles
Summary: Life hasn't ever been easy for Patton, and now he's trying to go to college.He's never lived out of the house before, all he asks is that his roommates are kind.boy is he in for an adventure. He's gonna have to learn fast as secrets are discovered, walls are broken down and life changes again, for the better this time. it's not gonna be easy but, He'll find that family can be anyone,  and who knows, maybe he'll even find love?
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Comments: 57
Kudos: 307





	1. Kids pick up on more than you think.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter warnings: alcohol mentions, Implied physical abuse, yelling, ablism, food, food mention, implied sexual abuse, neglectful parenting, Physical abuse ( someone gets slapped once), Swearing, doctors, hospital mention.
> 
> let me know if I missed any, or give me advice on formatting around triggering things.  
Thanks.  
the chapters will alternate between past and present for a while, but we'll get there eventually.

_2003~ _

_It started when he was three, at least that’s when he knew enough about the world to notice something was off. It started slow, little things here and there. Daddy coming home later smelling weird, Tension at the dinner table, mommy flinching when daddy moved too fast, daddy snapping when he asked questions. Things started to get worse when his little brother came along._

_ Patton was so excited to be a big brother, but daddy got mad whenever he talked about it. Mommy said he could pick what the new baby’s name would be, he thought long and hard, it was a big responsibility after all. Jack, Jake, John? No, not a J name… Robert, ralph, Remy! That was it, the perfect name! Patton and Remy, Remy and Patton. Yep that was it, he ran out into the living room where his parents were watching tv, “I found it, I found the name!” he said bouncing up and down, he was sure mommy and daddy would love it just as much as he did!_ _“What the hell kind of name is that, are you stupid?! I knew it was a bad idea to tell him he could have anything to do with this.” What? Why was Daddy so mad? Why was Mommy crying? Did he do something wrong? Did daddy not like the name? But it was perfect! He was so confused, maybe this was one of those things that he just didn’t get, daddy only calls him stupid when he doesn’t understand things about people. Like when he didn’t look at people’s faces, or when he got upset when things got too loud, like the vacuum, or when daddy was using the power saw in the backyard. _ _He better say sorry, if he didn’t say sorry daddy would push him into the wall and hurt his arms. Patton didn’t like when that happened, he didn’t like how it made him feel icky, or how it made mommy cry. “ I’m sorry daddy, I’m sorry! You’re right its a stupid name, I am stupid, please don’t be mad!” He was crying now, and daddy hated it when Patton cried. “You’re damn right you’re stupid, now go to your room before I decide that I need to teach you a lesson!” He ran to his room and hid in the closet._

_He liked the closet. It was quiet and cool and dark, and he could rock and flap his hands without daddy finding out. That was another thing that Made daddy ‘teach him a lesson.’ It took a while for him to calm down, it was almost dinner time by the time he felt like it was safe to leave the closet. He hoped dinner was something that felt ok in his mouth, he didn’t want to make daddy even madder by not being able to finish his dinner. He got up, went out to the kitchen and climbed up into his chair. Mommy had already put his plate down, they were having lasagna, steamed spinach, and garlic bread. Patton sighed in relief, these were some of his favorite foods, _especially_ spinach! The garlic bread was kinda icky, but mommy gave him the softest piece, so it wouldn’t be too bad. Patton loved his mommy, she was his hero. She never yelled or grabbed him, and she always knew when he didn’t want to be touched. She even let him run in circles and flap his hands when daddy was at work! So yeah, mommy was awesome. no doubt about it._

_ After dinner, it was daddy’s ‘quiet time’, which meant that he had to be extra quiet. Patton put his pajamas on, snuck into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed. He wished that he could still have his nightlight, but nightlights were for babies, and he was a big boy. he was just starting to fall asleep when mommy came in, that meant that daddy was asleep and mommy could come read him a story and stay with him until he fell asleep. She pulled the rocking chair over to the side of his bed and picked up his favorite book. He used to sit on her lap, but her belly was too big now for him to fit, mommy said that meant that the baby was coming soon. He snuggled further under the covers as she started to read. “A bee fell in the water, he went buzz, splash, buzz. When a bee falls in the water, that’s what a bee does.” He could hardly keep his eyes open by the time she finished the book, but he didn’t want to miss her singing, that was his favorite part of when she would stay with him. He started drifting off as she started to sing. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray. Youll never know dear how much I love you, please don’t take my sunshine away.” She kissed him on the forehead and pulled the blankets tighter around him. As she watched him breathing slowly, she said “I’m so sorry my little lovebug, I wish I could take it all away. You don’t deserve any of this.” She stood up, dried her tears and went to clean up the empty beer cans that surrounded her husband._

_ ~~~~~ _

_2005-_

_ Remy was two now, only they weren’t allowed to call him Remy when father was around, It was Ryan then. Patton wasn’t sure when he stopped saying ‘daddy’ and started using ‘father’. It was probably around the time he and Patton started having ‘special time’ when mommy was at work. Mommy didn’t know about ‘special time’, father said it had to be a secret, and if he told anyone “he would get a lesson hed never forget”. When mommy was at work it was Patton’s job to take care of Remy, he learned how to make soup on the stove, change diapers, and keep Remy quiet. Not that that was a problem, Remy hardly ever made a sound. Remy was a lot like Patton, he flapped his hands, hated being touched, and refused to eat certain foods. But he was also different than Patton in a few ways, he walked on his tiptoes, screamed at night, and never ever made any other sounds._

_ When it was clear the Remy was like Patton, father was furious. He had slapped mommy across the face and screamed “what’s wrong with you!? Are you broken!? Is that why you can only make fucked-up kids?!" Patton had started crying then, and Remy was walking in circles flapping his hands. Of course, this meant that both Patton and Remy had to be taught a lesson, that lesson ended with a trip to the ER and a ‘trip down the stairs’. Their house didn’t have stairs._

_ Other kids his age were starting Kindergarten, but not Patton. Mommy was too scared that someone would see the bruises and have them taken away. So Patton stayed home, and mommy taught him colors and numbers and how to read. Reading was hard, the letters got all flipped around and jumbled up. But Patton kept trying, and once he got it there was no stopping him. He quickly graduated from picture books to short stories, to large chapter books. He loved reading, when he was reading he could forget about ‘lessons’ and ‘special time’ and having to lie to the nice people at church, He hated lying more than anything. So he buried himself in the wonderful and vast worlds of his books. _

_~~~~~ _

_2007-_

_ mommy started taking him and his brother to a ‘special doctor’ who helped him learn to stop flapping his hands and stop crying at loud noises. The doctor was nice, but Patton didn’t like her very much. She made him wear the kind of clothes that burned on his skin, and eat the food that made him want to throw up. But he was getting ‘better’, at least that was what the grown-ups thought. In reality, Patton had just started hiding those things._

_ He was hiding more than that… he’d started having trouble keeping his bed dry at night. He knew that if father found out it would be very, very bad, and even though mommy hadn’t ever done anything to him, he didn’t know how far he could push her before she started treating him like father did. So he started sneaking Remy’s diapers at night, he was small for his age, always had been, so it wasn’t hard to fit into them. _ _it only took one time trying to wash his sheets in the middle of the night for him to give up on that idea. It was hard to use a washing machine that was twice as tall as you, let alone wrestle the sheets back on the bed. _

_He had started sucking his thumb too, and he’d catch himself talking like he used to when he was really little. He hardly talked at all anymore though. It was easier that way, less of a chance to slip up and reveal that little problem. It made Father less angry at him too, so that was a plus. Remy wasn’t really making any progress with the doctor, so Father took it out on Patton. It seemed like no matter how quiet, or how much ‘special time’ he gave Father, it was never enough. The plus side to that was that it didn’t look like Remy would be out of diapers anytime soon. _

_His books and the diapers were all he had, he couldn’t explain it, but they made him feel safe. When he was alone in bed wearing the diapers and sucking his thumb, everything was okay, the same way it felt with his books. The real world, father’s ‘special time’, the doctor and mommy’s crying felt far, far away. He felt guilty and wrong. He figured that father was right, he was broken, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t know how to cope without it anymore. So he hid, and he cried, and he pretended that his world was different._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have recently gotten a Tumblr, https://birds-are-my-jam-fam.tumblr.com/ , come chat if you want


	2. New beginnings, New anxieties.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patton takes his first steps toward being a fully-fledged, very stressed college student!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Occupational therapy mentions (the kind used to suppress stimming and autistic behaviors, Idk if that Qualifies as triggering, But I have to take breaks when writing about it, so yeah.)  
very brief Ablisim mentions  
very mild swears  
Again, let me know if I miss any, I want people to enjoy my angst fest, not have panic attacks, that would make me very, very sad.
> 
> Compared to the last chapter, this one's a walk in the park. there's not much in the way of negative feelings except anxiety, that's probably how it's gonna go for a while. the past chapters are definitely where a large amount of the angst comes in. The present will be more boring/fluffy for a while. but don't worry, we'll get there. all I can say is Poor Pat, and I'm going to burn for what I've done to this smol ball of sunshine.
> 
> People always write Virgil angst, and while he is a self-proclaimed 'compressed ball of angst', I feel like pat just has so much potential for sad. That and I just relate wholeheartedly to the reaction he had when he learned what repression means. Also, I'm getting an ear infection so I'll see you again on Tuesday, maybe ~P.

2019-

The day was finally here, the day Patton was dreading. College, it would be the first time he would ever be in the public education system for longer than half a semester, the first time away from his mom and Remy, the first time living with strangers. A lot of firsts. He was asking himself once again why the hell he was doing this, the answer was he had promised his mom that he would at least try to get a degree, and Patton always kept his promises. So here he was, standing in front of the administration building, feeling utterly and totally overwhelmed. “Alright Patton, you can do this!” he said under his breath, “just go by the script: Hi, my name is Patton Hart, I’m here to get my dorm assignment!” smile, make eye contact, don’t fidget. “Thank you, have a nice day!” or “oh it’s okay, take your time. Let’s get this figured out” short, sweet, and to the point. He’d be damned if all of that torture, oops, occupational therapy, that he went through was for nothing.

When he entered the building he was immediately overtaken by too much sensory input, the lights were too bright, there were way too many people for his liking and it smelled like axe, sweat, and coffee. Ok, ok, breathing exercises. In 1.2.3.4 hold 1.2.3.4 out 1.2.3.4 hold 1.2.3.4. That was better, at least he didn’t feel like he was gonna puke, or pass out, or both. He walked up to the reception desk and got in the back of a long, long line. He fiddled with the sleeves of his favorite cat hoodie while the time passed, and eventually, it was his turn.

“Hi! My name is Patton Hart, I’m here to get my dorm assignment!” the woman at the desk didn’t look much older than him, she stared at him with a look that said ‘i want to be anywhere else but here.’ “ What’s your date of birth?” Ok, this was off-script, but he could handle it. “October 11th, 1999” She typed his information into the computer and reached under the desk to grab a key, and a map of campus.” here’s your key, replacements are fifty bucks, so don’t lose it. There’s no smoking in the dorms or any of the campus buildings, but there are designated smoking areas. No pets allowed on campus unless they are trained service animals. You are in the male dorm, so no girls over at night, and you will have two roommates. Got all that sunshine?” His head was reeling trying to categorize all of that rapid-fire information, but he managed to spit out “Yes, thank you, have a nice day!” and get out of the building feeling mostly okay.

Ok, that went fairly well, now it was time to meet the roommates. This was the thing that Patton was dreading the most about the day, new people. People that he was going to be living with, for four years. People he was going to have to make a new routine around. What would they be like? Would they be extra-religious ableists, like the people he grew up with, or would they be at least indifferent to his issues? He hoped it was the latter. Well, enough stalling, time to make the trek across campus to his new home for the time being.

It started to rain as he was walking up to his dorm, he stopped, enjoying the cool water that always made his skin feel better. Patton loved the rain, he loved water in general, water was the one thing that could make his sensory processing disorder take a backseat. Eventually, though, he had to go inside, he would rather not draw more attention to himself by looking like he just took a bath fully clothed.

He was grateful that his dorm room was on the first floor that would make it easier if he needed to get out of the building so he could calm down. Sometimes the only thing that helped in the moment, was getting out, anyway necessary.

Although he was trying to be optimistic and hope that his other coping skills would work before having to resort to just bolting. He walked the rest of the way into the building and down the hall to his door, taking a deep breath he tried the handle, hoping it was locked, that would mean his roommates weren’t there yet. It wasn’t, great, ok time for happy social Patton. He put a smile on his face and mentally prepared the conversation scripts that might work. He was not looking forward to this, his anxiety was already spiking.

He opened the door and looked around, it was a surprisingly roomy place, there were even bedrooms, along with a tiny living space and a bathroom. He knew that this dorm was one of the nicer ones, but he hadn’t expected it to be this nice. He was extremely glad that there were doors, that would make keeping his less than normal coping skill hidden much easier. This might be okay, he could do this! he would be able to make it through, get his degree, and be what he’d wanted to be ever since he could remember, a special needs preschool teacher.

His train of thought was interrupted by a tall, intimidating man in a black button-up and dark blue tie. Never mind, he couldn’t do this, abort mission. He was standing frozen in the doorway as the tall, scary man approached him, there was a tiny voice in the back of his head that said he should brace to get hit, or thrown against something, but the louder practiced voice said that it would be okay, that all he had to do was pretend to be normal and nothing would happen. He managed to shake himself out of the oncoming panic attack and say “Hi, I’m Patton, I’m your new roommate, although now that I think about it, that’s kinda obvious unless I was some stranger that just wandered in. Which I’m not! Ok, I’m just gonna stop talking now.” that is why he stuck to the scripts, so he wouldn’t make an absolute fool out of himself and give people even more reasons to hate him. Oh well, now he just had to wait and see how bad the reaction was going to be.

Tie man just looked at him for a second, as if he was processing the rambling nonsense that came out of Patton’s mouth and sifting through it for relevant pieces of information. “Are you feeling alright?” was the first thing out of Tie man’s mouth, which surprised Patton. He was expecting “what’s wrong with you?” or “Wow you’re a freak.” but instead Tie man seemed genuinely concerned about him.

Oh yeah, He should probably ask what his name was. He couldn’t go four years just referring to him as ‘Tie Man’. “I’m fine, thanks. What’s your name?” He asked. “Logan, Pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Tie man, err Logan, extended a hand for Patton to shake, which he did even though he disliked touching other people. But being polite was more important than his comfort. “I have already claimed the room furthest down the hall, however, you may have your pick of the remaining two,” Logan spoke very stiffly, almost like he was mad at Patton, although Patton wasn’t the best judge of others emotions. Just because he had a surplus of them himself, doesn’t mean he understood them any better. “Oh, ok. I think I’ll take this one” Patton said pointing to the one closest to the door. “Very well, I shall be in my room until 8, please try not to disturb me.” and with that logan turned and left, leaving Patton standing in the hallway. Well, he had nothing to do now but wait until Remy and his mom arrived with his stuff. That gave him two hours to do whatever he wanted. “I think I’m going to go enjoy the rain,” he said to no one in particular, so he went back outside to find a good rain-sitting spot and wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that college dorms most likely aren't like this, but the only dorms I've ever been in were at job corps, and they were literal barracks, with no doors, it was not fun. but hey, it's already an alternate universe! I also know that Oct 11th isn't pat's canon birthday, but in order for this story to work, it has to be.
> 
> Logan is a grumpus, but I love him and you will too, I promise
> 
> The breathing exercise is called Box Breathing and it works. Seriously, try it. I spent many long nights in those barracks just breathing. It was the only thing that kept me sane in those three short months before a became a rare Triple Dropout™  
Elementary, High school, and Job corps baby I've seen, and failed, it all.  
~P.


	3. Was it the chocolate pudding?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2009 was a terrible year for Patton. However, it formed one of his core values, to never break a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ⚠️Warning, this chapter is quite dark in my opinion, by far not the darkest I've read on this site, but still. I'll summerise the important parts that are in between the last two line breaks in the endnotes but heed the warnings, please. I had to take six breaks while writing to calm down.⚠️
> 
> symbol key:  
~ equals flashback  
• replaces quotes in sentences that are signed instead of spoken.
> 
> Chapter warnings:  
yelling, swearing, implied physical domestic abuse, throwing glass,  
implied physical and sexual child abuse, alcohol mention, neglectful parenting,  
alcoholic character, anorexia, restricting meals, cancer,  
terminal diagnoses news, cancer treatment, hospital mention, vomiting mention, self-hatred  
depression, suicidal thoughts, pill hoarding,
> 
> pretty graphic descriptions of sexual and physical child abuse and some non-con drug use (for this, stop reading at the first line brake and pick up at the next one. this one doesn't really have much importance to the plot, so I'm not gonna summarize it)
> 
> suicide attempt (for this stop reading at the line break after "It still didn't outweigh the apathy he felt toward life" and start reading again at the last line break.)
> 
> As always, tell me if I missed anything.  
This ear infection is kicking my butt, but I haven't stopped functioning yet, so I will probably be awake to post on Saturday. See you then! ~P.

2009-

_ Patton was sitting in his booster seat as they drove to one of the only restaurants that his family went to, it was a rare fit, a place that had food everyone in the family would eat and was quiet enough to not cause any meltdowns. In all honesty, it was the only place Patton liked, except grandma’s house, but that wasn’t a restaurant so it didn’t count. He was worried though, mom had insisted that they go out tonight, that was unusual, especially lately. They hadn’t been going out to eat as much, and they would only buy the bare minimum of food to get through the week. No sweets or junk food, and no new clothes or shoes for Patton or Remy. _ _ Patton knew why things had changed, it was almost impossible to ignore the screaming and throwing matches that his parents had. _

_ ~~~~~ _

_ Earlier that week- _

_ “You lost your job again?!” mom screamed, she was getting bolder, no longer just suffering in silence, even though the bruises didn’t stop coming. “I can’t keep us afloat by myself, I’m already working two jobs, and teaching the kids! Patton’s shoes are two sizes too small, but we can’t afford new ones, because you keep drinking all the money!!!” She said, throwing the plate she had been drying when Father had gotten home and told her about getting fired. Patton winced from his and Remy’s room as the plate crashed against the floor. _ _ •Is daddy gonna hurt, mommy?• Remy signed, he hadn’t started talking yet even though he had just turned six, a fact that drastically increased the amount of ‘special time’ Patton had to give father. “Yeah, probably. But he’s drunk, so he’ll probably pass out before he gets to us, don’t worry.” Remy nodded and went back to playing with his trains, Patton was usually able to distract father before he hurt Remy so he generally didn’t care when Father got angry, that and he didn’t seem to have many emotions. _

_ Father was silent for a while as mom kept yelling. That was something that was happening more often too, it seemed like father had mostly lost interest in mom, and decided that he was more fun. “I’m gonna go out, don’t wait up.” the car keys jingled as he walked toward the door. “Oh let me guess, you’re going to the bar, aren’t you!” mom screamed back. “that’s none of your business bitch.” Father said as he slammed the door. _

_ The house was eerily quiet for a few moments before Patton heard mom start sobbing. He got up to go comfort her like he always did, He walked into the kitchen and sat down next to her. “It’s ok momma, me and Remy still love you.” mom just cried harder as she promised him it would be okay over and over again. _

_ ~~~~~ _

_ As they walked into the restaurant, Patton’s favorite waitress came up to them, Annie was awesome, she said that he reminded her of her little boy, and she knew sign language so he didn’t have to translate for Remy. “Long time no see, I was starting to get worried. How are you and the munchkins Meg?” she grabbed the menus even though she knew what they were going to order and walked back to the quietest booth. “ we’ve been ok, pat just learned how to ride a bike, he’s getting so big” mom replied as she sat down next to Remy. “that’s great! I’ll go get your drinks and give you some time with the menus. coke, two lemonades, and an iced tea?” mom shook her head, “Patton and I’ll have water instead.” Patton knew why. to save money. Mom didn’t know that it also would help him lose weight so he didn’t mind, Father told him that he was getting too fat, said he was disgusting and better do something about it. He’d been only eating half his dinner and skipping meals when mom was at work, he’d already lost a lot of weight. _

_ “Oh, ok I’ll have those right out.” as Annie walked away mom got ready to say something, he could tell it was important by the way she sat up and took a deep breath, Patton was really worried now. “ so I got the tests back from the doctor.” Patton didn’t know she’d gone to a doctor, was she sick? “It’s not good, I don’t have any way to say this gently, I’m so sorry.” she was holding back tears, and he felt himself starting to do the same. “ I have breast cancer, It’s late stage 3, they think I’ve got three months.” Patton’s mind froze. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t breathe, he knew what cancer was, he’d read about it in one of his books. It happened when something broke in your body and big lumps started growing inside you. It was bad, it was scary, it was _ _ deadly _ _ . _

_ He was trying not to cry. if any of them cried in public, it almost always ended with another trip to the hospital, and another lie. Father was silent for a moment, then he put his hands down on the table and said “this is what’s going to happen, we’re going to have our outing, no one is going to act like anything is wrong, and when we get home we’ll sort this out. Got it?” his tone was one that said ‘ argue and get hurt’ so no one spoke up, mom just nodded once and slipped back into her ‘outside the house personality’, complete with a surprisingly convincing smile. Patton tried, he really did, but two tears managed to get past and slip down his face. “ Patton, you better get it together, or our talk at home will be more serious.” Oh no, he screwed up, why did he have to be so stupid! He took a deep breath and managed to calm down. •what’s wrong?• Remy signed to Patton, he just shook his head and signed back •not now. I’ll tell you later, promise• “What are you brats saying? Can’t you just be normal?!” Father had never bothered to learn how to understand Remy, Honestly, it seemed like he didn’t care or notice that Remy existed most of the time. That was alright with Patton that meant that he didn’t have to worry about protecting him. They managed to get through the rest of the meal without any more problems. _

_ Patton was not looking forward to when mom fell asleep, he would definitely have to have ‘special time’ tonight. When they got home he hugged his mom and said “I’m really tired, I’m gonna go to bed now, bye!” and ran to his room to get ready for bed… and other things. He felt bad skipping out on mom and Remy, but he couldn’t handle hearing the inevitable fight that was brewing. _

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


_ It was almost midnight when he snuck out of the bedroom and into the garage, he knew that mom would be asleep and that father would come in soon, he had to be ready before then or things would be worse. _

_ He opened the tub labeled ‘Christmas lights’, pulled out the blankets that were inside, and spread them out in the middle of the floor. He took his clothes off and folded them, putting them on the workbench in the corner of the room. He sat down in the middle of the blankets and waited, trying to control his breathing. He only had to wait a few moments until father came in and locked the door behind him. “You’re ready, and you finally took care of your disgusting body, maybe you aren’t completely useless.” he walked over and stopped next to Patton, “let’s get started.” Patton stood up and grabbed fathers pajama pants pulling both them and his boxers down to his ankles. Father picked him up, which wasn’t difficult as he only weighed about 45 pounds, and layed down with Patton on top of him. _

_ “Daddy, please let me feel you,” Patton said almost robotically, repeating the script that he’d learned years ago. “Go ahead slut, sit against daddy, I know you want this.” Patton shifted so that his bottom was against the base of father’s penis and started moving back and forth, as father started touching him. he never had any reactions, father said he was broken because he should be enjoying it, it was all he was good for after all. _

_ After a while of this, Patton turned around and got on his hands and knees, Father never put himself inside him, that would be too hard to hide. Instead, he used his fingers. Patton was allowed to cry now, in fact, father encouraged it. It was all he could do to not pass out. He kept focusing on the fact that it was almost over, father never lasted very long after he started crying. _

_ It only took four minutes for father to finish, all over Patton’s back. “Go put these blankets in the wash and clean yourself up, I slipped the bitch some pills so she won’t hear the shower.” Patton just stayed still for a minute, he was trying to keep from vomiting, of course, this got him a swift kick in the ribs. “Are you deaf?! I said clean this shit up, get moving or ill have to teach you a lesson.” He scrambled to get up and gather the blankets and his clothes, father pulled his pants up, unlocked the door and left. Patton took this opportunity to sit down and start sobbing, he let himself cry for a few minutes and then got up to get everything put away and go take a shower. _

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


_ After he got cleaned up he went back into his bedroom. He paused for a moment, berating himself for what he was about to do. “You’re such a freak, you’re probably gonna go to hell for this.” he thought to himself “father is right you’re disgusting and broken and worthless.” his thoughts didn’t stop him from needing this though, he had stopped wetting the bed a long time ago. Remy was potty trained during the day, but he still wore diapers at night… and Patton still stole them. and used them. He had stolen a pacifier the last time he went shopping with mom too. Now he had a small collection of things for his stress-relieving ritual. a blue pacifier, a stuffed kitty, a blankie, and the diapers. He went over to his dresser and grabbed his softest pajamas and then opened the drawer with the diapers, taking them over to his bed, he hid under the covers and put them on. Then he got up and went to dig through the closet for the small box that had his other little stuff. His head had started to get fuzzy now, and it was getting really hard to walk. That was what always happened when he let himself be little, that’s what hed started calling it, He carefully waddled back over to his bed and clumsily climbed into it. He had a while before he had to start the extremely difficult process of getting bigger, Patton never slept at night after ‘special time’. _

_ He just sat there for a while rocking slowly back and forth, sucking on his paci. He didn’t have very many thoughts when he was like this. when he did they were simple, consisting of maybe three or four words. The most common ones were “want mommy” and “want up”, but even in this state, he knew that if anyone found him it would be bad, he didn’t know why he knew, but he did. All too soon he started hearing mommy starting to get ready for work, and he knew he had to be a big boy now. He got down onto the floor with some difficulty and grabbed his math workbook, looking at the numbers and trying to figure out the problems was the easiest way to get bigger. He started to cry as he tried to do simple addition, it took a long time and his workbook was covered in tears, but he was back to normal and ready to go clean himself up and have Breakfast. _

  
  
  
  
  


Four months later-

  
  


_ Life had changed quite a bit since that night in the restaurant four months ago, had it been such little time? It felt like years. Father had filed for divorce, he had said: “This isn’t what I signed up for, I’m not going to stick around for a broken woman and her broken children.” they had lost the house, so they had moved in with his grandparents. Father moved into an RV next door, and the court had decided that he could only have visitation once a week. Mom was in the middle of chemotherapy, so she hardly ever got out of bed, except to throw up and go get more chemo. That meant that Patton was taking care of Remy and his mom. Mom was too sick to keep teaching them, and no one wanted to deal with the hassle of taking them to school, so Patton wasn’t learning anything new. He could do simple addition and subtraction, write fairly well, and read of course, but that was it. Remy had started talking, he still signed around people who weren’t mom, grandma, and Patton, But it was progress. he was actually pretty funny when he did talk, he’d call people ‘gurl’ and ‘babes’ and tell sarcastic jokes all the time. Patton was proud of Remy’s progress, he still wet the bed but he was only six, so that wasn’t too bad. _

_ You’d think with father being out of the house things would be better, but that wasn’t the case. in fact, things were worse, at least for Patton. He didn’t have ‘special time’ anymore, and he didn’t have anywhere near the number of ‘lessons’ he used to. However, where he had mostly lost one abuser, he had gained another in the form of his grandfather. Grandfather yelled and threw things, but that didn’t bother him much, the real trouble was how grandfather made Patton ‘give him sugar’ which was very similar to father’s ‘special time’ except grandfather was in a wheelchair and Patton didn’t have to take off his clothes. _

_ With all this added stress, on top of having to make a new routine, and trying to suppress his stimming, he was really struggling. He was sleeping a lot more and eating a lot less. He hardly ever read anymore, and he started having very vivid and intense nightmares. He hardly socialized with anyone but his grandma and Remy, his mom was usually too tired to talk, and father and grandfather didn’t like it when he spoke. He was exhausted and so very cold, he snapped at people and cried for no reason. But worst of all in his opinion was that he had started regressing out of nowhere, he'd be going about his day when a loud noise would startle him, or he would wake up in the middle of the night, and he’d start slipping. He hardly had time to get changed so he wouldn’t have an accident and lock himself in the bedroom. No one ever noticed that he was gone, he was already so quiet, and grandfather forgot about him when he couldn’t see him because of his brain injury. Sometimes it took hours to grow up, sometimes it was only a few minutes. _

_ He didn’t know how to fix it, he didn’t know how to change anything so he’d feel better. What he did know was that he was so, so tired, and not just energy-wise. He was tired of living, he didn’t see the point. Things were always going to be horrible, and he was done fighting. He started sneaking one or two of mom’s sleeping pills every time he had to give her her meds. Five, fifteen, twenty-five, fifty. He had enough now. He didn’t write a note, he couldn’t think of what to say. All he knew was after nine long years of torture, he would finally be able to rest. He was ready, even though he felt guilty about leaving Remy and mom behind, it still didn’t outweigh the apathy he felt toward life. _

* * *

  
  
  


_ It was time, he picked out his favorite pajamas, might as well be comfortable right? He was shaking and tears were running down his face, but he felt strangely calm, his mind was almost blank, just take the pills and wait, it’ll all be done. He sat down on the bathroom floor with a glass full of water and a handful of pills. He took a deep breath, stuffed the pills in his mouth and chugged the water. He leaned back and closed his eyes, intent on waiting to die. However, in his scattered mental state, he forgot to lock the door. _

_ When jill hart got up to go to the bathroom, the last thing she expected to find was her blue-lipped unconscious grandson. Luckily, or unluckily in Patton’s opinion, she found him before the pills had done too much damage, not only that, she happened to be a retired nurse. So being used to being calm during emergencies she opened the medicine cabinet, grabbed the hydrogen peroxide, refilled the glass of water, and forced Patton to chug a hearty amount of peroxide, which caused him to vomit up the pills. She then forced him to drink the water, more peroxide, and more water. to flush out as much of the pills as possible. He was still unconscious, but he was breathing and he already had more color to his face. She’d have to keep a very close eye on him and make sure that he got lots of fluids in his stomach to keep the peroxide from doing permanent harm. But compared to being dead, possible stomach damage and changes in dietary needs was nothing. She knew logically she should take him to the hospital, however, if there was one thing Jill Hart was good at it was denial. _

_ So she picked him up and put him in the bath. she was shocked at how small he was, lifting him hardly took any effort and When she took his clothes off, she could count his ribs. She shook her head and tried to focus on cleaning all of the vomit off of his face and torso. she was too distracted to notice the scars on his back, running mostly on autopilot while her mind raced around in circles trying to process what was happening. She carried him into her bedroom and wrapped him in her blankets while she grabbed some clothes from his room down the hall. After she had gotten him clean and situated, she sat down and prepared to wait for him to wake up. She didn’t breakdown, but her shoulders were just barely shaking as tears ran down her face. she cried silently, wondering what the hell had led a nine-year-old to try to kill himself. _

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


_ When Patton woke several hours later, his first thought was, “what?” his second thought was “ow.” He didn’t really have many more thoughts, the world was just pain and confusion as he tried to open his eyes. He felt like someone had squished him under a thousand-pound rock. Even breathing was hard. It took a few minutes, but he managed to open his eyes, and immediately groaned in pain. It took a while for his eyes to focus and even longer for him to organize his mind enough to realize that he’d somehow gotten into new clothes and put into grandma’s bed. He started crying as he realized that he'd failed, that he was still alive. _

_ His grandma just sat quietly and waited for him to acknowledge her, he managed to turn his head and briefly make eye contact before deciding that the wall was much better to look at. She heaved a big sigh, uh oh, that meant she was pissed. When grandma was upset, she didn't yell or throw things like everyone else, she had quiet, smoldering anger. She managed to make you feel like dirt by just looking at you, and the worst part is, she only got this angry when someone did something that hurt themselves, so you couldn't even be upset with her for being mad. _

_ They sat in silence for a few minutes, each waiting for the other to speak first. Eventually, she broke the silence. "What the hell were you thinking?" She never raised her voice, she just kept her tone quiet and icy cold. "You have a lot of explaining to do, and you better not lie or leave anything out." Patton opened his mouth and gave up on that idea after his first attempt at speech. His throat was shredded, it felt like someone had force-fed him a molten glass razor blade smoothie. Well, sign would work. The only problem was that he could hardly move. _

_ He took a deep breath and sloppily signed: •Cant tell, he'll hurt you• "who'll hurt me? Did your father do something? I knew he was a bad apple, but did Megan listen, nooo." She adjusted her glasses and leaned forward "sorry, I'm just… upset. I'm listening now." Patton's mind was working overtime trying to figure out how to tell enough truth to satisfy her, but not enough for her to confront father or grandfather. They had drilled it into his head that if anyone found out, it would cost him and Remy their lives. He couldn't let Remy get hurt because he couldn't even die right. _

  
  


_ So Patton resolved to tell a lie, even though that was one of the things he hated more than anything. • a man from church took me to the bathroom. Hurt me. Told me he'd hurt my family if I told.• those were all the details he was willing to give, even if she yelled or hurt him, he wasn't saying anything else. "What was his name? I can get him arrested so he can't hurt anyone. I just need you to tell me his name. Patton, kiddo, I promise it'll be okay." If it didn't hurt so much, he'd laugh at that. It wouldn't be okay, it hadn't ever been okay. That was why he was in this situation in the first place. He sighed and raised his hands to sign again •no. I won't tell you. He'd still hurt you. It won't be okay. It never has been• He put his hands down and looked at the ceiling, in other words, 'im done talking'. his grandma sighed again, but this one sounded more tired than angry. "Ok, I can't force you to talk, but I'm here to listen." She took one of his hands "Patton, look at me." He turned and watched her through teary eyes, " I need you to promise me something and I will promise you that I will never tell anyone anything about this." He watched her and waited for whatever she was going to make him do, he didn't care anymore, he'd say anything, he just wanted to be left alone to cry and come to terms with the fact that he was still alive. "I need you to promise me that you will _ _ never _ _ do anything like this ever again." He could promise that, with one little change. He wouldn't try again, while she was alive. •I promise• she smiled and stood, "good, well that's everything that's going to get done for now. If you change your mind, I will always listen, and I will never blame you. I'm going to get you some water and start dinner, I love you kiddo." •I love you too• _

_ As Patton drifted into an uneasy sleep, he decided that he could control one thing about his life. He could keep true to his word. He would fight to keep living, both out of spite and to fulfill his promise. but once grandma was gone… all bets were off. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> line break summary: Patton tries to end his life, and his grandma stops him, cleans him up and sticks him in her bed to interrogate him  
She doesn't take him to the hospital.  
honestly, because she has her own issues.  

> 
> About 85% of Patton's experiences in this chapter, and a lot of the rest of the story, are based on my experiences as a kid, which is why I have to take breaks while writing. the main differences are that I'm a biological girl, and I did ballet with teachers who were painfully oblivious morons to not notice anything. Don't worry though, I've been writing stories like this at the advice of my therapist for ages now, so it doesn't harm me or my recovery.  
I just wanted to do something with this one because it would not STFU until I wrote it, and I actually really like the outline I have planned, so I decided to post it.
> 
> The title of this chapter is the title of an absolutely ridiculously stupid book, that my mom's bullshit divorce lawyer gave me to try to explain that the divorce wasn't my fault. I wasn't stupid, I knew that it wasn't my fault. I've been looking for a way to express my hatred for this book for so long, and then I figured out that it would be the perfect title for this chapter!  
If you like the book, I have nothing wrong with that and I don't think any of the people who blame themselves for their parent's divorce are stupid, I just hate the book with a burning passion for some reason. probably something to do with the fact that the lawyer thought about me enough to give me a book, but not enough to notice something was wrong at home even without my father.
> 
> DO NOT EVER drink hydrogen peroxide to induce vomiting, I am very very lucky that I only have to stay away from hard to digest foods, and get nauseous every time I ingest something other than spit. It could have been a lot worse than basically eating promethazine like smarties and being unable to eat things like celery or cheese curds.
> 
> my grandmother did what she thought best, and she saved my life, but it was very risky.  
~P.


	4. There is more than one kind of unpacking.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patton's family helps him move into his itty bitty room, and he decides that if everything is changing he can add another thing on top of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty simple chapter, with a full-blown panic attack in the middle.
> 
> Chapter Warnings:  
mild swearing, pet death reference, panic attack, hyperventilating, crying, doctor reference, past injury (not graphic), Acephobia? A character makes a joke that could be taken as offensive, sibling fight (non-abusive), Yelling once (non-Abusive), throw up mention, OCD/PTSD mention, medication mention, past suicide/psych ward mention, past child abuse mention.
> 
> I don't know if all of these things are triggers, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. I know from experience how obscure triggers can be, one of mine is fresh orange juice. let me know if I missed anything.
> 
> Remy is both extremely difficult, and extremely fun for me to write. I hope I did him justice.

2019-

It had taken a fair amount of searching but Patton was pretty happy with his spot. it was next to the parking lot so he could keep an eye out for his family, and it was under a tree so he could still feel the rain without getting soaked. Not that he would mind that, he just wanted to salvage as much of a good impression as he could after the disaster of an introduction that had tumbled out of his mouth. Logan seemed like the type who wouldn’t appreciate puddles of rain-water all over the floor, and he hadn’t even met the other one yet. He had put both of his earbuds in and closed his eyes as he listened to his music. He didn’t really have a preference, just nothing very loud or with an exorbitant amount of swearing. 

It had been about twenty minutes when he heard footsteps approaching what hed dubbed the Rain Tree. Patton didn’t even open his eyes as he said: “Rem if you throw anything at me, I swear I will hack all of your social media and spam your friends nothing but puppy gifs for hours.” He paused his music and stood up to greet his little brother.

“I still don’t understand how you always hear me no matter what. You had both headphones in, who the hell can notice someone sneaking up to them like that? let alone recognize who it is!” Remy’s sunglasses had slipped down his nose as he looked over the three cardboard boxes stacked in his arms, which he had no doubt been planning to dump on Patton’s lap as soon as he got close enough. 

Patton shoved his phone in his pocket and shoved on his gloves “It’s Autism Magic™, don’t you have any?.”

Remy snorted at that and turned back the way he’d come, “mom parked in the handicap spot right in front of your building, she's pumped that she’ll actually be able to help you move in.” 

Patton jogged to catch up with his little brother, who wasn’t all that little anymore. Remy had a growth spurt at around ten years old and now stood a good four inches taller than everyone else in the family. not that that was the biggest achievement, Patton and his mother were both pretty small, standing at five foot three each.

They walked up to the beat-up white van parked in the first available handicap spot where their mom was in the process of getting out of the car. Patton rushed forward to help her, grabbing her walker from the back of the van and pulling it up to the driver’s side door. “Hey mom, I missed you! How was the drive?”

His mother took the walker from him and walked around to the back door where Remy was attempting to haphazardly stack even more boxes into his arms. “Remy, If you break any of your brother’s things, you’re going to be replacing them!” she said as she grabbed the top box off of his stack and placed it onto the seat of her walker. She pretended not to see him grab another box to replace the one she just took as She turned to get some of the smaller things out of the backseat. “The drive was good, Nick finally got the driveway plowed, so it was easier to get the van out. He also sold that flatbed that was parked in our yard.”

Ah yes, September in Montana. It had already started snowing off and on, just enough to stick and cause annoyance, and the van didn’t have four-wheel drive. it was hard to drive through the gravel lot that was their driveway when their neighbor, and the owner of the RV and truck sales business that was in front of their tiny trailer, decided that he didn’t want to plow. Nick also seemed to enjoy blocking them in with the flatbed trailers that he sold, almost always parking them in the scrubby patch of grass that passed for the front yard.

“You act like you haven’t seen us for days, it hasn’t even been 48 hours. You just spent the night at Marina’s, It’s not like you went to Mexico or something.” Remy said as he finally conceded that the maximum number of boxes that he could hold was four.

Patton knew he was clingy, it was just that he’d never spent longer than a week away from his mom. Even though the campus was only 13 miles from home, it felt like it was across the globe. He had spent the night at his friend’s Marina’s house so that he could get his dorm assignment on time. His family lived seven miles down the highway from the nearest bus station and Patton had too much anxiety to walk that long next to the same highway his dog had gotten hit on not long ago. He also had too much anxiety to drive, so he didn’t have a license. Marina was a lifesaver, he had been in the middle of a panic attack about how he was going to get into town when she just said they should have a sleepover. She said it was to make up for the fact that she couldn’t get off work to help him get settled in, not that he ever needed a reason to want to hang out with her. They had clicked right away, it was like she was a long lost sister or something. His brother still said that she must be crazy to want to be friends with him, they had pretty different personalities, she was loud, outgoing, confident, and had the mouth of a sailor. Whereas Patton was quiet, introverted, and hardly ever swore. When you looked deeper into their friendship you could start to see similarities though. Marina’s confidence and loud personality were a defense mechanism just like Patton’s shyness, they both had the anxiety levels of a caffeinated chihuahua, and Marina was the only person that would believe it if someone said Patton said a word worse than darn-it. Patton was very grateful for her, she was the only person he had outside of his mom and Remy.

He was shaken out of his thoughts by Remy pushing him aside. “Move aside Bitches! Strong attractive man coming through!”

Patton shouted after him “language!”, although correcting him was pointless, he’d never stop swearing much to Patton’s displeasure.

Remy always pointed out that he was the only one who could do the heavy lifting, although, with the way he phrased it, no one could tell if he was bragging or complaining. Patton had fallen down a rather large flight of concrete stairs when he was 15 dislocating his hip, breaking his wrist, and slipping two discs in his back. He would have been in even worse shape if Marina hadn’t broken his fall. That was how they met actually, Patton crashing down on top of her in a mess of flying papers as she raced through the high school trying to get to her next class. He’d dropped out the next week. Didn’t even make it a whole semester before his PTSD had acted up too much for him to function, falling down the stairs was the last straw. When the doctor had given him crutches and said he could go back to school he just didn’t show up again. The school called his mom and she asked him if he wanted to go back, he felt bad but he told the truth and that was that. He’d stayed in contact with Marina though. She’d given him her number and said that being her friend was the only way he’d ever be able to repay her for keeping him from breaking his neck, and just like that they’d become friends, and somehow, were still friends five years later.

Patton helped his mom stack a few small boxes on the walker and reached across the backseat to grab the last box and the two garbage bags full of clothes. he turned around and dug the key out of his pocket one-handed, He hadn’t locked the door when he left, but that was almost three hours ago. His other roommate could be here by now, or Logan could have locked it after Patton left.

He walked into the building to find Remy impatiently waiting against the wall by his door, which answered the question of if he needed his key or not. “About time. you would think you were the one with the walker by how long you took. I may be buff, but I can’t hold your crap all day.”

Patton rolled his eyes as Remy complained, he unlocked the door and stepped back to let the drama king through. To anyone else, the way Remy talked to Patton sounded borderline abusive, but Patton and Remy prided themselves on having a sibling relationship built on what Remy called ‘mutual disrespect’. Which meant that their entire relationship consisted of sass and absurd threats, like posting weird things on the others snapchats, or moving everything in their room an inch to the left. They would very rarely say anything that actually had the intention of hurting each other, and if one of them accidentally crossed a line all the other had to do was say stop in a serious tone of voice and the topic would be dropped. That didn’t stop the occasional fight from happening, but having a sibling without fights is like having glasses without frames, it was impossible.

Patton pushed past Remy and opened the door to what would be his room for the next four years, or however long it took him to drop out, he hadn't actually looked inside the room after his encounter with Logan earlier. There was a twin bed pushed up against the wall by a tiny window, just enough wall space for a desk or dresser, but not both, and a very small closet with a corkboard on the door. It felt tiny, even without anything in it. It was perfect for Patton though, he didn't have many large things, and he'd always liked small spaces. All of his clothes fit into the top two drawers of his dresser, and he had a very nice lap desk his grandma had given him for his 12th birthday that he'd taken care of like it was his child. it was still in surprisingly good condition, especially with how much he used it. He had things set up that way so he could make his closet into a sort of safe space. A place to take a break from the world, whether he was upset or just wanted some time to himself to just be. Remy always joked that he'd missed the closet when he came out so he decided to go back to vacation. Remy marched straight past him and unceremoniously dumped the boxes onto the bed.

"If any of my stuff is broken, I'm coming for your Starbucks card." Patton said as he set his armload down much more carefully and started unloading the boxes from the top of his mom's walker.

Remy gasped and hid behind their mom, “protect me from your heathen child, threatening a man’s caffeine is just downright brutal!” 

Mom walked over to the bed and sat down on the small part that wasn’t covered in boxes, opening the garbage sacks and starting to fold the clothes. “I don’t know Rem, that sounded more like a promise to me. And you know how your brother is with promises.”

Patton started laughing at the betrayed look on his brother’s face and started opening boxes to get a sense of what went where.

As he was digging through the final boxes and finishing putting things away, Remy had started doing the same. Although Remy’s version looked a lot more like snooping than unpacking, he picked up the last thing to be unpacked and asked: “Are you ever gonna tell me what’s so important that you keep it in a locked box pat?”

Patton looked up from where he was organizing his art supplies into the under-the-bed storage boxes he’d bought to find Remy holding a black box about the size of a briefcase, twisting and turning it to try and figure out what was inside.

Patton got up and tried to snatch the box only to have Remy use his height advantage to hold the box out of his reach “Remy, give it back!” 

Patton continued to reach for the box as Remy easily held it out of his grasp.“What’s wrong, afraid I’ll find something juicy, Mr. asexual?” 

They kept up their little dance without noticing as their mom tried to warn them that they were backing toward the pile of empty boxes in the middle of the room.“boys, knock it off before you get hurt” they didn’t give any sign that they’d heard, Patton was too focused on getting his box back and protecting his secrets and Remy was too focused on antagonizing his big brother.

“Remy I’m serious. Give. It. Back!” Patton started jumping up and down with his arms over his head. 

Remy just laughed, “Make me shorty.” taking another step backward. 

Patton had just yelled “STOP” when they tripped over the boxes and collapsed in a heap next to the door.

Patton continued reaching for the box from where he’d landed on top of Remy, hed finally snatched it when he noticed the muffled laughter coming from the doorway. He looked up to see a man he’d never seen before, he was tall, ok he was average but everyone was tall to Patton. he was dressed in all black with a patched black and purple hoodie being the only splash of color to be seen, and he was wearing some makeup under his eyes, which Patton noticed he had never seen anyone do before, right before he noticed that the laughter was coming from Hoodie Man. he froze for a second while his mind processed the situation: new person, seems to be new roommate, probably saw what just happened. Shit.

Patton scrambled to get up while trying to keep ahold of the box, he went over and shoved it in his closet before he turned around and introduced himself, “Hi, I’m Patton. Sorry if My brother and I disturbed you.” Apologizing was something that came as easily to Patton as breathing, he hoped it was enough to keep this roommate from hating him. 

Hoodie man walked into the room and sat next to their mom on the now clean bed. “It’s cool, you didn’t bug me, I just got here. I was hoping to introduce myself to both of you at the same time, but the other guy isn’t here. Anyway, name’s Virgil, nice to meet you and thanks for the entertainment.”

Remy finally got up from where he’d been laying like a starfish on the floor and walked over to the bed. “I’m Remy, and you’re welcome.” 

Patton’s mom stood up “well now that you’ve met both of my gremlins, I’m Megan, and gremlin number two is going to take these boxes out to the car while he contemplates why it’s not ok to take other peoples stuff.”

Remy and Megan glared at each other for a good thirty seconds before he sighed and admitted defeat, grumbling he somehow managed to gather up the entire pile of boxes and started for the door, he paused and looked at Patton, “I’ll be waiting by the tree.” and then he was gone.

That was the way they made up after fights, whoever crossed the line would go wait at a private place for the other to calm down and then they would meet up and talk it out as best they could. which, depending on the situation would include crying or just a few short sentences, and then they would agree to leave it behind as best they could. That was the only reason that the two were still talking. if they hadn’t started this ritual, they would still be actively ignoring each other all the time. They had been using this method since The Great Fight of 2015 when they had successfully ignored the existence of each other for a total of two months before their mom had gotten fed up and devised a way for them to talk.

Megan sighed, “Well, that was an ordeal. I have no idea what God was thinking when he stuck me with two complete opposites for children.” she gave Patton a tight hug and started the trek back out to the car, “I’ll be in the van, come say bye after you talk with your brother.”

Patton watched her go making sure that she didn’t trip over the threshold, He was torn between staying and talking to his new roommate, and following her to make sure she made it the car. Resolving to let his brother keep on eye on her and turned to Virgil “how much of that did you see?” 

Virgil stood and walked to the door, “I came in right before you yelled.” 

Patton followed him out into the hallway, he laughed awkwardly “well, I guess that was one way to make an impression, huh?” 

Virgil walked into his room down the hall “Don’t worry about it, I’ve made worse ones myself. Shouldn’t you go talk to your brother?” 

Patton sighed turning to go outside “yeah, I’m getting there, I’m still a little mad and the point of him waiting outside is to let me calm down so we can actually talk without making things worse, my mom figured out that this was the best way to keep us from killing each other.”

Virgil laughed “you? Kill someone? No offense, but you don’t strike me as the violent type.” 

Patton giggled as he opened the front door “thanks! Non-violent is what I’m going for.” 

as Patton closed the door he heard Virgil say “Good luck with your brother.” 

Patton was walking toward the Rain Tree, he wasn’t mad anymore, although he hadn’t actually gotten mad, more annoyed and anxious about Remy somehow getting into the box and discovering his littlespace things. He rarely got truly angry, when he did he took after his grandma. He would get very quiet and hostile, when he was angry he voiced his opinions whether or not they were kind. Pissed off Patton didn’t have any problems calling people out on their bullshit.

He walked up to the tree that Remy had decided to climb up to hang upside down with his sunglasses that he always wore hanging off his face. Remy spent a lot of time upside down, it was one of his stims, the pressure on his ears from the change in gravity felt good to him. Remy’s auditory nerve hadn’t fully formed before he was born, so he didn’t hear very well and had a lot of ear pain. He used to have a really bad stutter when he was little, his ear condition was also why it took him so long to start to talk. His ears were the one thing he was truly insecure about, if Patton had really been mad at him he would have brought up his stutter somehow, he always did when they had a real fight. He walked up and snatched the sunglasses putting them on and sitting under the tree.

Remy penny flipped off the tree and stole the glasses back, “why do you always take my glasses when I’m upside down? That’s just rude babes.” 

Patton was fiddling with the fallen leaves as he said: “I was the one who gave them to you, so I have snatching rights, and if they fell they could get scratched.”

Remy sat down and started pulling leaves apart too “you sound like mom” 

Patton laughed, “you say that like its a bad thing.” 

Remy took his sunglasses off and turned to face him “I’m sorry I took your box, I am curious about what’s in it, but that didn’t give me the right to be physically nosy.” 

they sat there for a while, watching the stars, the sun was staying up less and less as the seasons changed. Patton heaved a sigh to rival his grandmother’s “I’ll tell you what's in it if you promise to be quiet until I’m done talking, and be kind with your opinion.” 

if Remy wasn’t curious before, he sure was now. “Gurl, did you do something illegal? Are there drugs in that box?” 

Patton sighed, slightly irritated, his anxiety was already through the roof at the thought of telling someone his secret, hed only ever told two people and one was his therapist, so he didn’t count. “Rem, can you please take this seriously, its kinda a really important thing in my life and I’m already freaking out about telling you. Let’s go talk in my room, that way I can show you and we can get out of the cold.”

“Ok, I’ll tell mom that well be a little longer than we planned and then I’ll meet you there.”

They got up and walked back to the dorm, Remy went to talk their mom and Patton went to unlock the box, he was already on the edge of a panic attack. But he figured he could kick him out if it went bad now that they weren't living in the same house. He grabbed the string around his neck that held the key to the box and slipped it over his head, he went over to his closet and picked up the box. This was his last chance to back out, but he felt he needed to do this, a lot of things were already changing, and Patton didn’t do anything halfway. He was more the ‘make feelings-based decision now, regret and fix later’ kind of guy. he was tired of hiding it from Remy, and if he accepted him, life would be a lot easier.

He unlocked the box and sat on his bed waiting for Remy to finish talking to their mom. Remy came in a few minutes later and sat next to Patton. “So… I’ve been hiding something from you since I was five.”

Remy stared at him with a confused look on his face, to be fair it was a hell of a way to start a conversation.

“Dad really messed me up, and I found a very weird way of coping with it, I have no idea why I started doing this or where it came from.” He handed Remy the box and held his breath.

Remy opened the box, there were adult-sized diapers, a soft overalls style blue onesie with paw-prints all over it, a ratty old stuffed cat, a sippy cup, a weird looking baby bottle, a small blanket, and an adult-sized light blue sparkly pacifier. There was silence for a few minutes as Remy picked everything up and stared at it before setting on the bed like he was defusing a bomb. As the minutes ticked by, Patton got closer and closer to crying, at the five-minute mark he the tears finally started to slip down his face.

Remy looked at him with a mixture of alarm and extreme confusion “what the hell does this mean? Are these things yours? I’m so confused, you’re gonna have to explain.”

Patton took a deep breath and started shakily explaining, his breathing getting shallower the further he got into the explanation: “I wear the diapers... and I regress to anywhere from three to six-months-old, but it’s usually younger. it’s something that helps me deal with things, it makes me feel safe. When I get stressed to the point of a breakdown, I regress without trying, I can’t help it. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I’m a freak, I’m sorry!” at this point Patton was full-on sobbing, to the point where it looked like he might throw up.

Remy firmly grabbed his shoulders to try to ground him. “ pat, pat, breath! remember all those exercises that Dr.Picani taught you?” Patton nodded and started to focus on controlling his breathing as Remy continued, “It’s okay, it’s not like I hate you, I’m just extremely confused, all you have to do is answer some questions and ill try to understand, it’s okay I don’t hate you. You’re not a freak. ”

Patton was surprised at that reaction, he was expecting Remy to call him names or just flat out leave. it took a lot longer than usual but he managed to stop crying to the point where he could talk. He was still breathing heavily “you have questions?” 

Remy nodded slowly “you said you wear diapers, do you use them?” Patton nodded. Remy started flipping his sunglasses open and closed “for...both?”Patton nodded again as the tears started falling a bit faster. 

Remy looked just like their mom as he rubbed at his forehead “Okay, Okay, can you walk or talk when this happens? do you, like, stick stuff in your mouth like real babies do? How often does this happen, and for how long? Do you remember it when you, like, grow up, or whatever, and does anyone else know?

Patton sighed, he had expected questions but not this many, this fast. He counted them off on his fingers as he replied “I can’t walk or use the bathroom no matter what age I am, I don’t know why that is. and when I’m older I can only say a few words, but I can't say them very well. yes, I try to eat stuff when I’m really little, it’s really annoying, but the pacifier has kept me from eating anything dangerous so far. it happens about twice a month, but it can happen a lot more if I’m really stressed, it can last anywhere from five minutes to a whole day. I only remember bits and pieces, I've told Marina and Emile, a couple of others, but I'm not in contact with them anymore." 

As he started to put things back in the box, Remy got up and went to lean against the wall by the door, "you know, when you said you tell me what was in the box, I sure as hell wasn't expecting something like that, I don't know what I was expecting exactly, but it definitely wasn't that." 

Patton left the box unlocked and put it back in the closet, "yeah, and I wasn't expecting you to be so okay with it." 

Remy walked over to him. “honestly, I’m not completely sure how I feel yet, I’ll text you when I get it figured out, but don’t worry I don’t hate you.” 

they started walking towards the van so Patton could say goodbye to their mom, “thanks, both for not hating me, and not freaking out. Please don’t tell mom about this.”

Their mom got out of the car before Remy could respond. “Oh my god, I was just about ready to come in there, you guys were taking so long. Are you okay, Pat, Honey, were you crying? Do I need to kill someone?” 

He laughed tiredly, “everything’s okay, no need for murder. Rem was just helping me when I had a little breakdown about the fact that I’m finally in college. I never thought it would happen, even after I got my HISET. Just a lot of emotions, but it’s all better now, no need to worry.” 

  
  


He walked over and gave his mom a tight hug as she said: “okay if you’re sure. I know how you feel, When you dropped out of high school, I gave up on the idea of college, but look where we are now. I love you honey, I’m so proud of you. I’ll text you when we get home.”

Patton moved to stand on the sidewalk as Remy got in the van and started it up, he always drove at night, mom’s night vision wasn’t all that great, “I love you too, have a good night. Drive safe.” 

He watched them drive off until he couldn't see them anymore, he sighed as he walked back to his room. That was an extremely long and stressful experience, he was glad that it was Friday, he couldn't handle having to start orientation the morning after a day like this. As he walked into his dorm, he was relieved to find both of his roommates’ doors closed, it was surprising that no one had interrupted while he’d been crying, he was sure the walls weren’t that thick. Maybe they were both heavy sleepers, it was rather late. or maybe the just didn’t care. He was glad either way, he was not in the mood to talk to anyone else tonight. He just hoped that there wouldn’t questions tomorrow.

He closed and locked his door, he had slept with a locked door ever since his parents got divorced, and now he couldn't sleep with an unlocked door. He went into his closet and grabbed his kitty and paci. He had started sleeping with them after he and his therapist and figured out that that, combined with medication, stopped his night terrors. He sat down on his bed and grabbed the pill organizer on his nightstand, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight pills. He looked at the pharmacy in his hand, in reality, he was only on five meds, one mood stabilizer, two for anxiety and OCD, one for depression, and one for heart arrhythmia. But the people from Medicaid were penny-pinching jerks and would prescribe the generic pills that only came in half his doses, so he had to take two of the same pill. He and his therapist had tested going off the meds once about a year ago, it didn't go well. He ended up in the psych ward after another suicide attempt. Since then he'd accepted that he needed them.

He took his pills, grabbed his kitty, got under his weighted blanket, and popped his paci in his mouth. Now to try to sleep, he was optimistic that the insomnia monster would leave him alone with how exhausted he was.he hoped that tomorrow was a Less stressful day. He turned out his light and it only took about ten minutes for him to pass out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is long. I wrote it before I even posted the first one, I'm halfway through writing chapter nine right now. I edited this one for about two hours, and I'm still not very happy with the formatting. but whatever, it's 2 am and I want sleep, I can always change it later.
> 
> When I told my brother about my regression, he just stared at me as he waited for me to stop hyperventilating before waiting to ask a bajillion questions. I don't think Remy's that kind of person, sassy, but not mean. 
> 
> I beat the ear infection!! but now my wisdom teeth are shifting, so my ears still freaking hurt :(  
I hope everybody else has a good weekend, or good whatever day you're reading this, and I'll see you again on tuesday for a very angsty update


	5. When it Rains it Pours.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Landlords who don't do their job are going to hell, moving is already a stressful experience.
> 
> Family is a complicated thing. most often in life, the strongest source of love, and pain, comes from family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who got the story outline finished!! 
> 
> This chapter made me cry. It is grade A sad, at least for me.  
also, I got to rant about god a Lil bit, so that was nice. I believe everyone's relationship with religion is different, and I have absolutely no problem with people of any denomination, all y'all are valid. This is just my view, and subsequently, the one I gave Patton, like a jerk, because I am.  
Once again, I hate the way this chapter ended up formatted, but life be that way sometimes.
> 
> Chapter Warnings:  
Cancer, Cancer diagnoses news, nightmares mention, past suicide attempt mentions, implied physical and sexual child abuse, Maladaptive stimming, minor neglectful parenting, food, food mention, Religious commentary, mild swearing, implied car accident, police mention, refusal of needed medical treatment, hospital, doctors mention, surgery mention, heart attack mentions, stroke mentions, Minor character death, cremation, and last but not least our favorite friend... Repression!
> 
> the actual description of the death will be between the line breaks, and it doesn't really need to be summarized. it's kinda self-explanatory once you read the rest of the chapter. so just skip the line breaks if death in hospitals is triggering for you, stay safe. tell me if I missed something or if I should change any warnings.

2012-

_ He was twelve when they moved out of his grandparent’s house, He couldn’t believe it, now he only had to spend five hours with his father once a week, and he didn’t even have to interact with grandfather at all. Ideally, he wouldn’t have to interact with either of them, but he wasn’t going to complain, this was a much better situation than before. The house they had moved into was small, but it had enough space that, for the first time, Patton and Remy had their own rooms. _

_ There were only two things that he didn’t like about the house, his room didn’t have heat, but they lived on the Oregon coast so that wasn’t too bad, and there was mold everywhere. Mom would wipe the walls down with bleach every day, which he hated because bleach was one of the things that set off his sensory processing disorder. Carrots, canned corn, mayonnaise, bleach, chalk, candle smoke, the smell of fast food grease, polyester blankets, several types of clothing, anything really loud, and people touching him. all things that he really, really hated. No matter how much bleach mom used or how dry they tried to keep it in the house, the mold would be back the next day like nothing happened. _

_ Other than that, life was going okay, mom was in remission and had started working full-time again, she still wasn't teaching him anything but he had googled things like how to use punctuation and times tables. He was getting better at writing, but math remained extremely difficult for him. He would get so mad when he couldn't understand the problems that he'd start crying and hitting himself or biting his arms. When mom found out, she had sat down with him and taught him the times tables so he wouldn't hurt himself anymore. _

_ About six months after mom had stopped going to chemo, she started complaining that her back was really sore, she was getting tired really easy too. She thought she might be tired because of the mold, but they couldn't do anything about that. It had gotten into the walls, and they couldn't afford to live somewhere else, Patton was just glad they weren't moving back in with grandfather. _

_ mom had gone to the doctor for her six-month tests a week ago, and now she was waiting for the doctor to call her with the results. She was just finishing up with cooking dinner when the phone rang, she picked it up and answered just like every other phone call. Patton was drawing at the table when mom turned off the stove and sat down heavily in the chair across from him. He looked up to see her rubbing her forehead while listening to whatever the person on the phone was saying, she had tears in her eyes and looked exhausted. Patton recognized the look on her face, she looked like he had when he was depressed. He put his pen down, closed his sketchbook and waited quietly for her to finish the call, knowing that something bad had happened, again. She hung up about fifteen minutes later and just stared at nothing for a while before she got up and started plating up the food, "go tell your brother that it's time to eat" _

_ As they sat down to eat, mom sat up and took a deep breath, she looked sad, like she was resigned to the situation as she said: “I got the test results, they show that the cancers back in my lower back, which explains why I haven’t been feeling well. They say that with how early we caught it, I’ll probably only need very light chemo and radiation. I should be able to keep working, so we won’t be moving again, but things are gonna get harder around here for a while. I hate to rely on you so much pat, but I’m really gonna need your help with things around the house and watching out for your brother.” _

_ Patton was struck by Deja vu of that night three years ago at the restaurant. Things were so different now, well, taking care of Remy wasn't new, _ _ but the feelings of grief and fear were the same. He started quietly crying as he quickly ate his spaghetti, wanting to just eat his dinner and go breakdown in his room. _

_ “What’s gonna happen now? Are you ever not gonna be sick, Are you gonna die? Who’s gonna take care of us if you die?” Remy asked while tapping the edge of his glass over and over. he was crying too, which was odd, he rarely showed that much of an emotion that wasn’t sass. _

_ their mom reached across the table to hold Remy's hand, "I don’t know, but we’ll figure all of that out, it’ll be okay. We’ve always made it through before no matter what god threw at us, we’ll get through this too.” _

_ Patton resisted the urge to angrily roll his eyes, he had a very different opinion on the subject of god than his mother. _ _ He believed that God existed, but did not believe that God was benevolent or kind. God in his mind was more like the kind of person who gets an ant farm and forgets about it until they get bored and want to cause chaos, enjoying how the little ants run around frantically when poked at. Whereas mom thought that everything had a purpose and was meant to help them in some way, he believed that life was random and suffering had no purpose other than to make people miserable. Mom thought that if you prayed hard enough things got better, and that if you truly couldn’t get through something on your own, god would help you. He knew that no one made things easier for you but yourself, you only cry and pray for your father to stop hurting you so many times before you give up on the idea of divine intervention. _

_ He finished his dinner and got up to take his plate to the sink, he stopped and gave his mom a hug “it’s okay mom, I know you can beat it and I don’t mind helping you out with stuff. I love you.” _

_ his mom returned the hug tightly, knowing that deep pressure was the only kind of touch that didn’t hurt him, “thank you, sweetie, You’ve always been my biggest supporter. I don’t know what I do to deserve such a good kid.” _

_ he wiped his eyes with his sleeve as scraped his plate off and put it the already waiting dishwater. he hated crying, but it seemed like crying was something he was destined to do quite often, he was sure that normal kids didn’t cry this much. “I’m gonna go to bed early, I love you guys.” _

_ His mom pulled him in for one more hug “I love you too, so much. Don’t ever forget that.” _

_ Remy just shot him a teary smile, he wasn’t one for non-sarcastic verbal displays of affection, He was more likely to make Patton a sandwich without being asked or give up his time with the computer. That was okay with him, he would rather die than force someone to give any kind of affection that they felt uncomfortable with. _

_ He had always struggled to fall asleep. When he did sleep it was full of nightmares, which wasn’t unusual. But there was more variety tonight, he would usually have a few where he was reliving what had happened with his father or grandfather, or have the recurring one where he had succeeded with his suicide attempt and was forced to watch helplessly as _ _ Remy was forced to submit to the same things he had been in his place, but he’d never dreamt about mom dying and them having to move in with father before. He was exhausted the next morning. _

  
  


2013-

_ Just after his thirteenth birthday, they moved again. His mom had worked extremely hard to repair enough of the damage to her credit that medical bills and father’s drinking had done so she could get a loan to buy a house. She had just gotten done with the treatment for this second bout of cancer when the real estate lady had called to say that they had gotten the house and that they could move in whenever. _

_ Eight months later they had finally gotten everything unpacked. one of his birthday presents had been getting to paint his room whatever color he wanted, So now he was sitting in his baby blue room on his computer, which had been his other big birthday present. His grandma had gotten him a pretty nice desktop and a headset with a microphone so he and Remy could play games online without having to be in the same room, he was currently playing Minecraft while listening to some music, he listened to a lot of music, a fact that had prompted his mom to take him and Remy to see a musical at the tiny community theater which had sparked a new special interest: Musical theater. _

_ He had only had a few special interests over his life, there was a period where his depression was too severe to be interested in anything, and when he was little his ‘obsessions’ made father angry. There had been a few though. When he was five it was rocks, he learned everything a five-year-old could know about rocks, crystals, and geodes. even going as far as stealing some of father’s safety glasses and a hammer and then proceeding to spend hours breaking open every rock on their property in search of geodes. He’d found one too, he gave it to his grandma for her birthday and was so excited when she let him infodump about all the awesome rock facts he knew. Next came snowglobes when he was eleven, He had amassed a collection of twenty-seven, most of which he bought himself using the money grandma would give him for doing chores or eating. She had started rewarding him for doing things like eating and getting out of bed after she found him that day on the bathroom floor. they’d kept the promises they made that day, he didn’t try again and she didn’t tell anyone. Mom still didn’t know anything had happened, and he intended to keep it that way. His grandma had always tried to be interested in whatever he was at the moment even before she had started paying close attention to him, she could never match the amount of all-encompassing focus or enthusiasm Patton had, but she did her best. _

_ He was just finishing the foundation for his and Remy’s house while listening to the Wicked soundtrack when his mom knocked “Sweetie, can you and your brother pause for a minute and come out to the living room? I need to tell you boys something, it’s important.” _

_ this sounded bad, he could hear the worry in her voice, “Be right there!” Pausing his music, he got up go ask if his brother had heard what their mom said. _

_ Remy was shutting down his computer when Patton opened the door to his room, “yeah I heard her, I’m coming. What ya think that was about?” _

_ Patton shrugged as they walked down the hall towards the living room, “I dunno, but it sounded serious” _

_ When they got to the living room mom was sitting in her chair by the tv with their golden retriever, Dudley, at her feet. Dudley looked worried too, whining even though she was running her fingers through his fur in his favorite spot. The boys sat on the couch and waited for whatever new catastrophe had happened. _

_ “I just got a voicemail from grandma, It didn’t make any sense. She said something about a car accident, I think, I’m not sure though.” she rubbed at her forehead like she always did when she was stressed. “Go get some shoes on, we’re gonna go see if she’s okay, in the message she said something about being by the railroad tracks next to the casino.” _

_ As they scrambled around trying to get ready to drive the forty-five minutes to the casino Patton couldn’t shake the feeling that something really bad had happened. _

_ When they got to the area mentioned in the message there nothing was there. They’d been trying to call his grandma for the entire trip with no response, so when mom saw that she wasn’t there, she panicked. you could tell she used to be a dispatcher by the way her version of panic consisted of switching off her emotions and working to organize the situation. She called the police and asked them to put out a Be On the Look Out notice for a handicap accessible red van and to check the hospitals for a woman named Jill Hart and her disabled husband. She continued rattling off the license plate number as she turned around to drive another forty minutes to check at grandma’s house. Both boys knew that there was no stopping mom when she was in ‘dispatcher mode’ so they stayed silent. If anyone said anything that wasn’t immediately useful in solving the situation, it would be ignored until after the crisis, She didn’t even acknowledge the police officer’s confusion at being talked to this way by a civilian. she just finished giving the information and told him she’d call back if she found them. _

_ When they pulled up to grandma’s house the first thing they noticed was that grandma’s Bernese mountain dog Moochie, who she treated better than anyone else in the family, was playing in the street. Next thing that they noticed was the destroyed van in the driveway. They pulled in and piled out of the car. As mom and Remy went to attempt to corral moochie in all of her 195-pound glory, Patton noticed that the back gate was open. when he walked onto the back porch his grandma was standing in the middle of the yard facing away from him. _

_ He walked up behind her and poked her shoulder “hey gramma, what happened today? Mom got a message from you, but we couldn’t understand you. We were really worried, Mom called the police.” _

_ she acted like she hadn’t heard him, too focused on something that only she could see. He kept asking her questions, getting more concerned the longer she went without noticing him. "Is grandfather inside? The back gate was open when we got here and Moochie is in the road, Mom and Rem are trying to catch her. Are you okay?” _ _ he finally stepped into her line of sight and looked at her face. He gasped when he noticed that the right side of her face was drooping, mom’s doctors had told him that if he saw that it meant the person had had a stroke and to get them to the hospital immediately. _

_ As he started gently pushing her toward the driveway to go tell his mom and get her to the hospital, _ _ she finally noticed he was there, _ _ “Oh, hi Kiddo! when’d you get here? Where’s your mom? I found a recipe that she’ll love, and it doesn’t have any carrots so you will too!” _

_ Patton was trying hard not to start crying, he hated that that was his first reaction when things went wrong, it made him feel more useless than usual. “Mom’s out in the driveway, she had to catch moochie when she got out, wait here and ill go get her” He lead her to the passenger side of their van and ran to get his mom. _

_ They had gotten moochie on a leash and were walking back outside after putting her in the house when he came stumbling up the front steps and started to cry, “Mom! Mom, we gotta take gramma to the hospital, she had a stroke!” He managed to shout before breaking down into sobs. “ _

_ What?! Are you sure?!” His mom started racing toward the car without waiting for an answer. _

_ Remy helped him calm down a little and then they went over to the car to find mom arguing with grandma about going to the hospital. _

_ “I’m fine Megan, I don’t need to go! I need to stay here and take care of your father.” Grandma started trying to go back inside. _

_ “Mom, you need to go, I’m not taking no for an answer. The bastard can take care of himself for a few hours, he obviously got himself inside! you don’t need to sacrifice your health for him too, you don’t even leave the house anymore!” Mom grabbed her arm and started gently but insistently leading her toward the car. _

_ grandma continued struggling, “It’s ok, I just need to take a nap. I’ll be fine, You’re all overre-” She stopped mid-sentence and just stared into space for a few seconds. “-acting.” _

_ he moved to help his mom get grandma into the car, “Gramma please, Just go. For me?” _

_ She finally conceded and got into the car. As he listened to his mom call off the cops while driving to the hospital he didn’t know why, but he had a feeling that this was going to be more than just one ER visit. _

  
  


One month and three days later-

_ Braindead. That’s what the doctors said. “We’re sorry, but there’s nothing we can do. She has no brain activity.” _

_ That’s not what was supposed to happen, he thought as he sobbed next to his grandma’s hospital bed in the ICU, it had been a month since the first stroke. Since then there had been two more, and then she had a severe heart attack two days ago. When they’d gone to the hospital on that first day, the doctor said that they had to go to a bigger more advanced hospital for grandma to get heart surgery. While the Oregon coast was pretty, it had horrible health care. _

_ They had been staying in a hotel in a town three hours away from home when his mom woke him up in the middle of the night and told him to watch his brother because she was taking grandma to the emergency room again. The surgery was originally scheduled for a week from now, but she’d had a heart attack so they pushed it up to yesterday. They had replaced her aortic valve and everything was going well until some crystalized cholesterol got into her bloodstream and blocked the blood flow to her brain resulting in a massive stroke. That, combined with the two smaller strokes was too much for her brain to handle. _

_ But he wasn’t thinking about all that right now, all he was thinking was that he never got to say goodbye. They’d taken her into surgery early this morning, his mom had dropped him and his brother off at the hotel last night and told them that when they woke up she’d come to take them to see her in recovery. His mom was the only one there to say goodbye, they hadn’t thought he and his brother needed to lose sleep staying up so late because the doctor had told them that there was only a very tiny chance that anything would go wrong. _

_ His crying had died down, tears were still flowing freely down his face but he was calm otherwise.“I’m sorry I wasn’t here.” he whispered. His mom and Remy had gone to get something from the cafeteria, but he’d refused to leave. “I should’ve been there for you like you were for me.” Even though he couldn’t have saved her like she saved him, he felt like he could have done something if he’d just been there. _

_ Unbeknownst to him, his mother had come back from the cafeteria and stopped to listen while waiting for Remy to get back from the bathroom. _

_ “You know I never said thank you.” He tried to laugh but it came out more like a choking sound as the tears started flowing a little heavier. “I was mad at you for the longest time. I thought, what right does she have to decide if I die? It’s my life. But things are better now and I wouldn’t be here to see it if you hadn’t walked into that bathroom. I’ll try to keep my promise, someone’s gotta be around to remind Rem to wear socks with his shoes, and I guess it’s up to me to keep up the tradition of calling everyone kiddo, huh?” He actually managed a laugh at that. “It’s gonna be so much harder without you though… I’ll miss you...so much.” _

_ his mom decided to keep the fact that she'd heard anything to herself and resolved to ask about it later after life got somewhat back to normal. Not that she wasn't worried, if she was right about what she thought he was talking about, they were going to have a long talk, but she figured with all of the stress she might be jumping to conclusions. They walked in and Remy handed him a bag of Cheetos and some apple juice. They all sat around the room in silence waiting for his aunt Amanda to arrive so they could turn off life support and say goodbye. _

_ To patton, the sounds of a hospital were very loud. All of his senses except his eyesight were heightened, which is why being touched hurt and why he couldn't handle going inside fast food restaurants, it was just too much. Right now though, everything except the beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor was quiet, like he'd put earplugs in. It seemed like no time had passed when his aunt arrived, it had gotten dark out but he hadn't noticed. He was still holding the unopened bag of Cheetos as he stood up to greet her, _

_ "how ya doing bug?" She asked as she squashed him in a hug, aunt Manda gave the best hugs. _

_ He burst into tears again as he tried to respond. "I-I'm f-f-fine." _

_ She sat down and pulled him up into her lap without much difficulty, he was still pretty small, grandma had said it was because he wasn't eating enough when he was really small, so he didn't grow as much. "I know, I know. it'll be okay." She kept rubbing his back firmly as he cried harder than he'd ever done in his whole life. He never ate his Cheetos, but he did drink some of the apple juice at the insistence of his aunt. _

* * *

_ The doctor had come in not long after to take the breathing tube out and turn everything off except the heart monitor. He held his grandma's hand and the hours ticked by while they waited for one of the only three adults he'd ever trusted to die. _

_after a few hours with no change, the nurses had brought Remy a cot so he could sleep, but Patton refused to go to sleep. He'd already missed saying goodbye once, he was going to be there for her this last time. It was 2:14 am when the heart monitor started speeding up. It went from 60 beats per minute to 100, to 260 and then 0. He hadn't started sobbing again like he thought he would, instead he went numb, both physically and mentally. The nurses came in and turned off the monitor plunging the room into silence. His mom woke Remy and they went out into the waiting area while she and his aunt picked where they were going to send his grandma's body. They weren't going to have a funeral, all of grandma's family except them were dead and, much like Patton, she didn't have any friends. _

* * *

_ They went back to the hotel and surprisingly he passed out as soon as he hit the pillow. he still had nightmares, but he didn't have any about what just happened, he just had more than the normal three or four. The next day they went to the funeral home and picked up two boxes, one for his aunt and one for them. It felt weird and wrong to have come to this town with his grandma and be leaving with half of her, powdered in a box, then again, everything felt weird and wrong right now. _

The next day.

_ As they drove home, he thought about how fast life can change. Nothing in his life had ever changed slowly. Mom's cancer, father leaving, moving in with grandfather, All things that had happened suddenly and changed his life drastically. The only thing that had made these events easier had been grandma's kindness and her infectious sunshiny demeanor. he knew most of it was fake, something she put on like a mask to help the people around her feel better, which in turn made her feel better. He felt pretty crappy right now, and he was sure everyone else did too. They needed someone to pick up that mask and make things better again, he hadn't been able to change what happened to grandma, but he could help the rest of his family by being kind and happy like grandma. And that was what he'd do, he'd pick up the mask, but he didn't know how hard it was to put it down. If he had, he wouldn't have even thought about picking it up in the first place. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When my family references a house we lived in, we call it by a describing component, like grandma's house, or the blue house. We call that house 'The Moldy House'. it was that bad.
> 
> Take care of your credit kids, once you lose that, you lose your status as a person. I've seen my mom be denied housing, food, healthcare, transportation, and employment because of her credit score.
> 
> Also, have you seen Treadroppeddew's new sander sides animatic? It is my new favorite thing. https://youtu.be/1h_TbJzzQNA Watch it, Give her love. I think her art style is so cool.
> 
> Anyways... I hope y'all have been having a nice time in your worlds. I'll see you on Saturday for another chapter from the current times.


	6. An Introvert an an Extrovert walk into a bar...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The best friendships begin with bribery.  
Patton is going to make friends with his roommates whether or not they like it, although one will be more difficult than the other. But Patton is patient, and stubborn.  
He's also best friends with a hurricane of a person, who doesn't like not getting her way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed writing this chapter, it's just a setup chapter again though. We have two more present-day chapters to get through before things really get going, it's also really long. Enjoy.
> 
> Texting Symbol key:  
regular italics= Patton  
Bold italics= Remy
> 
> Chapter warnings:  
A lot of food/food mentions, anorexia mention, scars, implied past self-harm, past acephobia and homophobia, tonsillectomy mention, calorie counting, slight sensory overload, implied OCD, anxiety disorder mention, swearing  
As always, lemme know if warnings need changed or added to.

2019-

Patton woke to silence, which felt weird, not to wake up to Remy smacking repeatedly on his door at six am asking if he was going into town. The answer to that question was usually no unless he had therapy or a doctor’s appointment. He was on disability right now until they could figure out a solution to his anxiety or he could somehow afford a service dog because he couldn’t currently handle having a job for more than three months before he had a breakdown and ended up quitting. He had no clue what made him think that college would be different, but he made a promise and ya never know till you try.

He rolled over, shoved on his glasses, and grabbed his phone to check the time and see if he had to get up and interact with people. He generally made it a rule not to interact with people on a level deeper than ordering tea and smiling at the barista before 9 am, although that was gonna have to change now that he had roommates. Not many people could tell from the way he presented himself to the outside world, but socializing exhausted him. He was glad that today was Saturday, he and Marina had planned on going shopping to get a few last things for his room and then she was going to come to help him set up his computer, technology was something that he wholeheartedly enjoyed using, but couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to set up. Marina was also coming over to be a buffer until he had figured out his roommates’ routine a little.

It was seven-thirty and she wasn’t coming over until ten so he had time to take a shower, get dressed, and eat something. Showering was the problem, Even though he could take his clothes with him and get dressed in the bathroom, it still freaked him out. He had a hard time looking at his body, because he was much chubbier than he would like to be even though he was a perfectly healthy weight. he'd never shaken the tendency to count calories and restrict his meals from when he was little, to the point where he'd gotten diagnosed with anorexia. He hated showering even more than eating. 

Even though He was doing well now with eating, he still hated looking down, but now he also had a small chance that someone else would see him. He was used to the scars, the ones he could see were mostly self-inflicted, the really bad ones were on his back. He hated the stares he would get if anyone saw them or explaining what they were from, that’s why he wore a bathing suit with a shirt and always changed in a stall whenever he was in a locker room. He grabbed his go-to outfit, a white compression undershirt, light blue polo shirt, which he’d bought five of when he'd finally found a moderately grown-up looking shirt that had an ok fabric, a pair of pants that looked identical to khakis, complete with belt loops, but were really made out of sweatpant material, and a cardigan that he wore around his shoulders like a cape just in case he needed an extra layer of sensory protection from the world later in the day or there was a particularly nosy person staring at the scars on his arms. he only wore slightly different versions of around three outfits, which had gotten him weird looks when he was working. It wasn’t his fault he liked routine and hated most fabrics. At least he had different cardigans and a fair amount of hoodies, honestly, that was what most of his clothes were.

He had just gathered up his clothes, towel, and soap when his phone buzzed,

**New message from Little Bro:** ** **

** _Hey._ **

_ Mornin rem. What’s up? _

** _Mulberry’s a bitch._ **

_ Language _

_ .  _

** _Fine shes a jerk_ **

_ Better. Why, what’s the assignment this time? More poetry analysis? _

** _ Nah, Fiction writing this time. I hate it. I hate her. she hates me too._ **

_ I’m sure you’re exaggerating, she probably only dislikes sassy teenage boys who don’t like to participate. _

** _It’s not my fault she gets snippy when I don’t respond, she has my IEP, she knows abt my ears._ **

_ That’s fair but it doesn’t give you the right to be mean. Last time you wrote her into a poem as a ‘dragon witch’. _

** _Well, she is._ **

_ Are you texting me so you don’t have to do your homework? I don’t want to be a part of your bad boy behaviors. _

** _Gurrl, u know everyone loves a bad boy._ **

_ Ok, I’m gonna go now. _

** _Wait, I was thinkin abt what u told me yesterday. _ **

Patton held his breath as he messaged back:  _ And? _

** _Like, I still don’t get it, but it doesn’t sound like it’s hurting anyone. I know dad was really bad to u, and it’s just good u didn’t get into drugs or somthin. u do u babes, we’re cool, Just don’t expect me to be a good babysitter if it ever comes up, remember when I gave Marina’s niece an iced mocha?_ **

_ Poor thing was up all night, her mom was furious _

** _Ya, me and babies don’t mix. Anyway, just didn’t want u to freak out or anything, I know u were V upset last night, and I won’t tell mom._ **

He sighed in relief.  _ Thank you so much Rem, You’re the best. I hate keeping this from mom but you remember when I came out as ace  _ _ and _ _ gay… _

** _I don’t think I’ve ever seen awkward silence make someone freak out so bad, u passed out. And then she kept trying to get u to go on dates because “u haven’t met the right girl yet.”_ **

_ Yeah… and we just got past that, she even drove three hours to pride with me. I don’t want to mess that up. _

** _I got u babes, lips are zipped._ **

_ Thank you. I’m gonna go shower and eat something before Marina gets here, we’re going shopping. Love you.❤️❤️ _

** _Say hi to crazy for me._ **

_ I will. _

With that, he went out into the tiny living room feeling much less anxious and way more ready to tackle the day, he was on his way to the bathroom when he noticed logan reading while sitting on a couch that wasn’t there last night, “Morning kiddo! Is that your couch?”

Logan looked over the top of his book, “I was under the impression that we were the same age, a years difference at most, why did you call me ‘kiddo’?” 

Patton walked over to the itty bitty bathroom and shrugged “its something I’ve done since I was little, I do it to everyone no matter how old they are.”

Logan went back to reading and muttered: “It is nonsensical and could be considered rude.” 

He closed the door and put all of his stuff down “ I guess I’ll just ask Virgil about the couch.” He said under his breath as he started his music just loud enough to hear over the shower. He started humming along to the Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack as he got in, he never sang, just hummed. He used to sing, and then he got his tonsils out last year so he wouldn’t have to sleep with a machine anymore and now he hated the way his voice sounded so he just hummed along as he washed as best he could without looking down.

When he got out of the shower both Logan and Virgil were sitting on the Couch of Mysterious Ownership, logan still had his book and Virgil was sitting upside down with his headphone cord hanging towards the floor. “G’morning! Is this your couch?”

Virgil sat up, took his headphones off, and swayed a little as the blood rushed down from his head, “Yeah, it’s mine. The chair over there’s mine too. Why?” He pointed at another piece of furniture across the room that Patton hadn’t noticed when talking to logan earlier. 

“Oh no real reason, I was just curious because they weren’t here when I went to bed last night.” he went into his room, put away all his shower stuff, and grabbed his backpack to make sure he had everything:

  * Wallet
  * Phone
  * Noise-canceling headphones for if his ‘one earplug in at all times’ trick didn’t work
  * Tissues
  * Migraine medication
  * Nausea medication
  * Heart medication
  * Water bottle
  * Various fidgets
  * Tiny whiteboard and marker for if he was nonverbal around someone who didn’t know sign 
  * Sketchbook
  * Pencils
  * Minty gum for headaches that weren't migraines, and for ice breakers when he couldn’t come up with small talk.
  * Pepper spray
  * Pepper spray remedy
  * Dorm key

Yep, all present and accounted for. Now to go to the cafeteria, when he’d looked at his map it looked more like a building with a bunch of self-contained restaurants, almost guaranteed to be smelly and loud. He was having a good sensory day so far though, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

He packed everything back in the bag, stuck his earplug in, and made his way to the front door, as he passed the living room He asked: “Do either of you kiddos want me to bring you back some food?" 

Virgil had gone back to hanging upside down, "you don't have to do that, but if you really want to, I would like some french fries, large, I don't care where they’re from."

Patton wrote 'french fries, large.' in his phone "you remind me of my brother, he hangs upside down more than a bat"

Virgil laughed "is this the same brother that I met?" 

Patton sat on the arm of the couch and looked down at Virgil "I only have one brother, which is good because I’m not sure I could handle more siblings." He looked over at Logan who was actively ignoring them "what about you Logan, do you want anything?"

Logan sighed and put down his book, “I’m not hungry at the moment, thank you for the offer. If you two are going to continue this conversation, I will be heading to my room.”

Patton shook his head and stood, going back over to the front door, “it’s ok, I’m heading out now. I want to get the food and eat before my friend picks me up to go shopping, are you sure you don’t want something?” 

Logan stood anyway “I am satisfactory at the moment, however, if you are going to continue to insist, I would appreciate a large black coffee from Le Peak Coffee” He walked into his room, the door shutting firmly behind him. 

Virgil rolled his eyes, “What a Prick, You’re being nice and he acts like your trying to get him to sign up for a pyramid scheme or something. He’s a weird dude.” 

Patton shuffled back and forth on his feet. if Virgil thought logan was weird just because he didn’t have very good social skills and kinda talked like a grumpy encyclopedia, what would he think of all of his issues? “Now now Virgil, It’s not nice to judge people based on one conversation, I try to wait to fully form my opinion of someone until I’ve known them for about a week. You never know what's going on below the surface, he could just be having a bad day, or be anxious around new people.” 

Virgil gave a little two-finger salute “Ok dad. I’ll try to keep that in mind.” 

Patton opened the door, “Yep, that’s me, Your Happy Pappy Patton! I’ll be back with fries and coffee in a little bit, see ya soon!” Patton closed the door while Virgil called back “bye.”

The weather was nice. there was some snow on the ground, yay Montana, but it was warm enough that he didn’t have to put a coat on. He’d always liked the chillier weather this time of year, so he only wore a coat when he absolutely had to. He wandered into the ‘food zoo’, aptly named for all the chaos inside. Ok, time to find something around 500 calories, some fries, and ‘Le Peak Coffee’, wherever that was, and get back to dorm before he got too overwhelmed.

He went to a little deli-like area first and picked out a 111calorie Cup of OJ, a 280calorie turkey sandwich, and an 86calorie fruit salad cup, for a total of 477 calories. He bought it, Smiled at the cashier and shoved it in his backpack. Time to find the coffee shop, hed ask them to make it extra hot so that it’d still be a good temperature after he got fries and walked all the way back. He wandered around for a while until he found it, he was starting to get a little overloaded with all the activity going on around him so he didn’t really take in anything but the sign and the order counter. There was surprisingly no line so he just walked up to the lady “Good morning, Can I get one large black coffee, extra hot, and a small earl grey tea with skim milk and no sugar. Thank you.” He paid and sat down in a chair to people-watch while he waited for his drinks.

“Black coffee and skim tea no sugar for Patton!” He grabbed his drinks and headed for the McDonald’s that he’d seen when he was wandering around.

It was 9:30 by the time he got back to his dorm, he walked in balancing the empty cup of tea, and the fries in one hand and the coffee in the other. Virgil was laying down on the couch scrolling on his phone with his headphones on. Logan was nowhere to be seen. “Hi, I got your fries!” 

Virgil sat up and took the fries from Patton “Dude, this is great! I didn’t think you actually meant it, what do I owe you?” 

Patton threw his empty cup in the garbage can and set his backpack down next to the couch “It’s no big deal, Just consider them a new friend gift! I Have Logan’s coffee, I don’t want it to get too cold. Do you know if he’s still in his room?” 

Virgil started stuffing fries in his mouth at an impressive rate, “Yeah I Fink sho, He didn’t come back out after you weft. I wif I had some kethup.” to Virgil”s shock and delight Patton reached into his bag and produced three ketchup packets.

Patton laughed at the stunned look on his face, “You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full, you could choke. I’m gonna go give logan his coffee, and then my friend will probably be here. if you hear a lot of really loud knocking that’s Marina, Feel free to let her in if I don’t get there first. also, take smaller bites, the fries aren’t going anywhere kiddo.” 

Virgil made a visual attempt to slow down while Patton walked down the hall to deliver coffee to a hopefully less grumpy and intimidating Logan. He knocked on the door “Hey Logan, I’m back. I have your coffee.” he heard shuffling from inside the room and then two sharp taps on the door frame before logan opened the door with a slightly less grumpy look on his face, although his face seemed to almost always be grumpy. “Hey, Here’s your coffee.”

Logan took it and held out 5 dollars, the exact price of the coffee. “Thank you, although you did not have to, this will keep me from having to go myself.”

Patton shook his head “you don’t have to pay, consider it a new friend gift!”

Logan held the money out more insistently “ while it was kind of you to pick up the coffee, it would be too much to insist that I didn’t pay.”

Patton tilted his head “ are you sure? I don’t mind, I wouldn’t have offered if I did.” 

logan just shook his head, “I’m Sure” 

Patton shrugged and pocketed the money. Logan’s eyebrows raised as he took a sip of the coffee, “it’s still hot. you left at 8:30, how did you manage that?”

Patton leaned against the doorframe, his back was starting to hurt, he made a mental note to pick up some ibuprofen at the store “Oh, I just asked them to make it extra hot, most places already make it super hot to begin with, so asking for that usually makes it hot enough to last a while depending on the type of drink. My brother has a major coffee addiction, so he taught me all the tricks. I usually drink tea though, coffee makes my mouth feel weird.”

Before Logan could respond a loud rapid knocking came from the door, “That’s my friend, You should come say hi. She’ll find you either way.” the knocking continued.

As he turned to go open the door Logan said “No thank you, I still have several things I need to do. If your friend insists upon meeting, she can come to me. Thank you for the coffee.” With that, he closed the door. 

Logan confused him, he was very proper and seemed not to like anyone, he hoped that he would open up more, as it was now Logan both stressed him out and made him curious enough to want to initiate conversation. That usually meant he was either going to end up hating someone, or getting too attached and having his heart broken. Honestly, he hoped it was the former, he knew how to live with someone he hated.

He got to the door just as Virgil opened it. Standing there was a girl even shorter than Patton. with undercut long hair, gauges, and an oversized NASA shirt over leggings and slides. She looked like the absolute opposite of Patton. She immediately sized Virgil up, “I like your makeup, I’ve never seen someone put it under their eyes before.” She started trying to look around him into the room “I’m Marina, the crazy best friend. Where’s pat? I haven’t seen him in forever.” 

Virgil stepped back to let her in “I’m Virgil, How are you friends with him? He’s like a ball of pastel colors and sunshine.” 

she looked around the tiny living room as she said, “ it’s a long painful story,”

Patton laughed “You saw me yesterday, I stayed over at your house. Muffin rolled all over me and I couldn’t stop sneezing, remember?”

Marina came over and gave him a hug that rivaled his aunts, “Oh Yeah, I had to lint roll you while you took like five Benadryl. Are you ready for an all-expenses-paid trip to Target?” she went to sit on the couch as he walked toward the hallway, 

“It’s not all-expenses-paid if I’m paying, I’m gonna go grab a coat in case it starts snowing, don’t kill anyone or set anything on fire.” 

Virgil looked worried as she replied “You’re no fun” and Patton walked into his room.

She leaned back on the couch while she snooped in Patton’s backpack, “So, has he cemented himself as the ‘dad friend’ yet?" 

Virgil sat in the chair across for her and watched her thoroughly invade Patton's privacy, "yeah, he bought me fries and then gave me a lecture on talking with my mouth full, and he called me kiddo. I'm twenty" 

Marina grabbed all of the food out of the backpack and put it on the couch next to her, "he does that. I've seen him call both an eight-year-old and fifty-year-old kiddo without batting an eye, I doubt he'll ever stop doing it." She put the backpack back by the couch, satisfied with her snooping, "where's the other roommate, Pat said he had two." 

Virgil pulled out his phone and started scrolling Tumblr again "he's in his room, he's a major stick in the mud in my opinion, I actually got a lecture on that too."

She stood, careful not to knock the food off the couch " sounds like something Pat would do, he's very against judging people, a real accepting sweetheart. it gets him taken advantage of a lot, but I've never seen someone scarier than him when someone hurts his loved ones. I'm gonna go bug the 'stick in the mud', be right back."

Patton grabbed his coat and was about to go back to the living room when he heard Marina knock on Logan's door. he knew eavesdropping was wrong, but he was curious about what Logan would do when confronted with a whirlwind of a person like Marina. He heard another two taps right before the door opened "I assume you're the friend, my name is Logan. Do you enjoy space, or do you wear the shirt simply because it’s popular?” 

Marina laughed “Wow, you really get to the point, don’t you? I bet pat likes that.” 

he blushed from his spot behind the door as Logan made a confused sound “I Fail to see what’s so special about keeping small talk to a minimum.” 

Marina shook her head “ don’t worry about it. Why are you hiding in your room, it’s the weekend, have some fun before your life becomes nothing but school. Like us, we’re going to target!” the carpet shuffled, probably Marina leaning on the wall as she talked.

“Yes, Well. I am perfectly fine ‘hiding’ in my room, I have plenty to do and I don’t see how going to Target could be classified as fun. If you’ll excuse me I have to get bac-” he was cut off abruptly as there were a fair amount of scuffling noises, Patton rolled his eyes, Marina had no doubt dragged Logan into the living room to convince him to do something other than stay cooped up reading, or whatever he had been doing. 

He sighed, It was probably time to go do damage control before Marina got herself banned from coming back. He walked back out to the living room to see Virgil in the chair pretending not to be interested in what was going on as he hid behind his phone, Marina had found the food that he had shoved into the backpack and forgot about, which meant he’d get a lecture, fun. She was sitting on the arm of the couch reading the packaging of the sandwich while blocking Logan from getting up to go back to his room. Logan was glaring daggers at her as he sat resigned to his fate for now, despite the height difference between the two, logan caught on pretty quickly that she was fast and had no problem playing dirty to get what she wanted, a trait she’d picked up from having five very rowdy siblings from the ages twenty-two to ten.

“ ‘Rina, Logan looks like he’s not having very much fun, you should let him go do what he wants, You can’t make friends by force. besides, we need to get going.” He made for the door hoping to avoid the lecture that was coming.

Too late, “Patton Matthew Hart, you get back here this second, we are going nowhere until you eat your food.”

So close to freedom, He turned back around and sat next to Logan on the couch “Fine, but only if you let logan go.” 

Satisfied with those terms she stood “go back to being a hermit if you want, I guess.”

Surprisingly Logan stayed where he was, maybe because he didn’t believe she wouldn’t attack him, or maybe, hopefully, because now that the decision had been made for him he was less anxious about interacting with them. Either way, Patton was grateful, this way he could get to know his mannerisms a little.

“So, how many calories?” she handed him the food and stared at him while he cracked open the orange juice,

“477” he replied while trying to figure out how to use the little spoon that came with the fruit salad. when he looked up she was still staring at him “I had some tea too, that makes it 517.” 

she nodded satisfied with that answer, both Logan and Virgil looked confused at both the content and casualty of that interaction as she started absent-mindedly fiddling with her popsocket, something Patton knew she did when she was anxious but refused to acknowledge it, 

“This place is pretty nice, you guys lucked out. My sister’s room in Bozeman is like half this size with the same amount of roommates, The bathroom wars are brutal.” 

Virgil put his phone down, “Yeah, I was pretty surprised too. It’s nice to have somewhere private to hang out that isn’t just my bedroom.” He looked over at Patton with a disbelieving look on his face as he watched the last bite of the sandwich disappear. “Woah, dude you’re like a garbage disposal. How’d you eat that so fast?”

He just shrugged, mouth still too full to answer. Marina stood up grabbing his backpack before he could protest, she could tell his back was hurting and wouldn’t take no for an answer so he didn’t even try, 

“now that you’ve witnessed the amazing feat that is pat’s eating, we’re gonna go. It was fun meeting you two, but Target awaits!” 

He cleaned up all the food wrappers, handed Marina the half-empty orange juice to hold while he put his coat on, “I’ll see you kiddos later, don’t get up to anything crazy without me.” He smiled, closing the door with a little wave. 

As they got into her car she said: “You didn’t tell me they were hot, and Logan’s totally your type.” 

He smacked her arm “ I am not thinking about that right now ‘Rina. Just let me get through orientation and then you can talk crazy.” He took an anti-nausea and downed the rest of the orange juice while They pulled out of the parking lot as she replied:

” Whatever. just know that when I’m right and you two get together, you owe me a milkshake. A nice one, Not a cheap one from Baskin Robin’s.” 

He laughed “Okay, sure, now let’s get shopping, I want to get some new stuffed animals, Kitty’s getting lonely.” He connected his phone and they blasted, as loud as he could stand with his oversensitivity, his mismatched playlist the entire fifteen minutes to Target.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all like Marina, cuz she's here to stay. She'll be less prevalent further down the line though, so don't worry. 
> 
> Speaking of tonsils, the spots where mine were are killing me, I never seem to get a break. It's always one thing or another. Ear infection today, Wisdom teeth tomorrow, etc.
> 
> I feel like Remy and Roman are on very similar creative frequencies, hence the poem. Also, What is Remy's sexuality, Does anyone know, Does Remy know, Will we ever find out? Tune in in like twelve chapters...oops.
> 
> I hope everyone has as good of a day as their situations allow, and I'll be back Tuesday. ciao!


	7. Ups and Downs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The phrase is two steps forward one step back, but right now it feels more like one step forward two steps back. although feelings don't always match reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooooo, I may have forgotten what day it was. But the sun hasn't risen yet, so it's not Wednesday in my book. It's currently three am so the editing in this chapter is probably terrible, but I can fix it later, so whatever. anyways, Patton gets a chance to speak his mind this chapter and he's not gonna waste it, good for him. 
> 
> Chapter Warnings:  
shouting, throwing things, panic attacks, hospitals, social workers, surgery, suicidal thoughts, past child abuse, abuse scars, pain meds, inadequate psych care, passing out, night terrors mention, ableism, swearing, past sexual abuse, attempted sexual abuse, food mention, self-hatred.
> 
> if 911 calls/passing out/surgery freaks you out skip the section between the line breaks, if hospitals in general or social workers freak you out stop reading at the first line break and pick up at two months later. I'll summarize the important bits in the endnotes.  
As always tell me if something doesn't need a warning, or if I forgot something.

October 2013-

_ they had shoved grandfather in a shoddy, government-run rest home three months after his grandma passed, he’d never forget the day that they left grandfather behind for good…. _

~~~~~

_ Everyone else had left to get more boxes, leaving him alone with grandfather to unpack all the things the rest home didn’t provide. He was putting meal-replacement shakes in the small fridge that the room came with when grandfather had called him over.  _

_ He walked over to the recliner and stood just out of arms reach. “Yes?”  _

_ he watched grandfather look over at the door to check if anyone was around before he said “Why don’t ya come give me some sugar before you go? It’s been a long time and I won’t see ya until the next time yer ma gets time off work.”  _

_ Patton froze “What?”  _

_ Grandfather reached out and he automatically took a step back. “Don’t play dumb, I know yer brother’s the deaf one. quick, before they get back.”  _

_ Something inside of him snapped, he just stared as he got angrier and angrier, finally, the anger overflowed and shook him out of the trance, “No.” he took another step back as his heart started to race, he’d never said that before, where had that come from?  _

_ “Don’t say no to me boy, get over here! Now!” Grandfather started shouting and he knew he should be scared, but he was just angry. all other emotions faded to the background. In the back of his head, he knew he was going to be an anxious mess after this. He would probably regress too, and everything would fall apart. but right now he didn’t care, this was his chance to say no, to take back control. He’d been waiting for this for a long time.  _

_ “No.” He took another step backward toward the fridge. His voice was scarily calm as he said: “I will not give you anything. Look around you, this is where you’ve got yourself after you treated your whole family like worthless slaves to do your bidding.” he grabbed one of the shakes as grandfather watched him, too shocked to speak “You abused every person who ever loved you until they couldn’t stand you anymore. You killed the one person who stuck by you, running her into the ground until she had a stroke.” He threw the shake at his grandfather, looking like a perfect mix of the two women that raised him, both calm, and violent. “You’re going to die here, no one will care if you get a pressure sore, or have a heart attack.” he continued picking up shakes and throwing them, leaving puddles of chalky milk everywhere. “To them, you’re a government check, nothing more. We aren’t even paying for you to be here, we owe you nothing. You’re a pathetic old man.” He ran out of shakes and stood there, his hands shaking and tears running down his face, breathing heavily, but not once raising his voice. “I’m fourteen, I can stay home, there is absolutely no reason why you’ll ever see me again, not now, not when I turn eighteen, not ever.” He stalked over to grandfather’s chair, banking on him being too shocked to move as he leaned close to his face “I’m. Done.” He turned around and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. _

_ He immediately sank down to the floor and started sobbing, the rest home staff rushed to get his mom while one of them crouched next to him, trying to figure out what happened. Of course, the first thing everyone thought was that something had happened to grandfather, but when they checked on him all they found was a stunned and very angry old man covered in chocolate muscle milk. Needless to say, everyone was confused, but no one could get a word out of Patton. He just sat there wracked with sobs as he rocked back and forth. his face and clothes were splattered with milk and tears, he looked like an absolute disaster. he flinched hard when the male orderly tried to touch him.  _

_ He didn’t respond until he heard his mom gasp and say: “Oh sweetie, what in the world happened to you?”  _

_ he looked up and managed to spit out “I’m sorry” before somehow crying even harder than before. everyone just watched stunned as his mom crouched down next to him and started checking him for injuries. when she couldn’t find any she tried to get him to tell her what happened. But he just leaned against her and continued to cry. She asked the staff if they could find some scrubs that might fit him and just sat with him rubbing his back. When they finally came back he took the pair of surprisingly small scrubs and went into the nearest bathroom to get out of his sticky clothes _

_ After he had changed she tried again to get him to talk “What happened honey? I can’t help if you don’t tell me.”  _

_ Patton was too upset to speak, but at least he hadn’t regressed. Maybe some sort of fight or flight reflex knew that it would make the situation even worse. This wasn’t the first time he’d been nonverbal after a panic attack, so his mom wasn’t surprised when he started signing instead of speaking: •I got fed up with how grandfather treated me, I couldn’t take it anymore•  _

_ she looked confused “How he treated you?”  _

_ he sighed, he had hoped that shed leave it alone and he wouldn’t have to elaborate, even though realistically he knew that wouldn’t happen, •When we lived in grandma’s house, he used to call me into his room to ‘give him sugar’, He would touch me inappropriately while I stood next to his chair. I didn’t say anything because he threatened you and Rem, and I was nine so I couldn’t do anything. He tried to do it again when you guys left and I lost it.• _

_ His mom looked furious as she quietly said “He molested you.” like she couldn’t quite believe it, he knew she did though, she wouldn’t be mad if she didn’t. She didn’t phrase it like a question but he nodded anyway. “Go wait with your brother, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”  _

_ she walked down the hall surprisingly calm. He followed a little behind until he found Remy waiting in the sitting room area where people would visit their loved ones.  _

_ “What the hell happened?” Patton was about to reply when they heard their mom shouting down the hall  _

_ “You will never see any of us again! I hope you rot in hell, you filthy old bastard!” there was a crash and then she appeared stomping toward them, she stopped at the front desk and said: “I don’t ever want to hear anything from that man again, as far as I’m concerned he’s already dead. Do not let him try to contact us and don’t bother calling when he dies. he’s your problem now, good luck.” She turned to them and motioned towards the car “Come on, let’s go home.”  _

_ The only reminders of grandfather that he had now were a pair of scrubs that his mom wore to paint the house and his nightmares. He didn’t regret anything he’d said, and his mom took his anxiety more seriously now. She still didn’t know about his depression, but she’d started taking him to the only mental health practitioner in the entire county, Patton absolutely hated the man, and that was saying something, it took a lot for him to truly hate a person. He only talked to him the bare minimum to cooperate and seem polite, he was a misogynistic ableist jerk, who believed that Patton was making everything up, but he did put him on Prozac _

  
  


_ ~~~~~ _

  
  


February 2014-

  
  


_ Patton had been trying to sleep for hours. Usually, it was because of night terrors, he’d fall asleep for a few hours only to sit straight up in bed covered in sweat and crying, he also had the odd and unfortunate issue that whenever that happened, he would scream cuss words, that probably had something to do with his aversion to swearing and tendency to correct people. His doctor had no idea why it happened, and the Prozac didn’t help, so his family just started wearing earplugs since there was nothing they could do about it _ . _ _

_ This time he hadn’t even been able to fall asleep, he was sick. It had started out as mild flu earlier that day, but it had definitely gotten worse. His fever had spiked and he was in so much pain that he could hardly get out of bed. Of course, this had only happened after everyone went to sleep. He had been trying to ignore it for the past five hours, but he just couldn’t get comfortable no matter what he did, he was getting worried, so now, at three in the morning, he got up and started the long painful trek to his mom’s room on the other side of the house. What was normally a two-minute walk at most, turned into an exhausting twenty-minute hike.  _

_ They had taken in Grandma’s dog when she passed, so now they had two large dogs, who were currently sleeping almost on top of his mom. when he stumbled into the room, they freaked out for a second, growling before they figured out who it was.  _

_ Their reaction was enough to wake his mom “pat? S’ that you?”  _

_ It took him a minute to catch his breath before he managed to wheeze out “yeah. I think I need to go to the hospital.”  _

* * *

_ That had his mom awake and at his side in a flash, “why? What’s wrong!?”  _

_ he sagged against her as his legs gave out, “ my side hurts.”  _

_ she grabbed him and shuffled him onto the bed as she reached for her phone on the nightstand. As she dialed 911 the dogs moved to claim him instead, they seemed to know something was wrong, they started whining, moochie moving to rest by his shoulder while Dudley covered his feet “Yes, I think my son has appendicitis, he has a high fever with severe pain in his lower right side. 1020 North Harlem St.  _ _ we have two large dogs, but they’ll just bark for a while.” She ran to the bathroom and got the thermometer, “His temperature is 106”, she nodded to herself at whatever directions the dispatcher gave, and started moving him to the bathroom. _

_ He was too out of it to really know what was going on. He just knew he was in pain and moving somewhere. He was jolted awake somewhat when his mom put him in the bath and filled it with freezing water. _

_ The next thing he knew he was being dragged out of the bath by a stranger while the dogs went nuts. They kept asking questions, which he lazily responded to. He was moving again and then he passed out. suddenly it was tomorrow and he was in a hospital bed, in a lot less pain. His mom was sitting next to him holding his hand with dried tear tracks down her face, and Remy was asleep in a chair on the other side of the bed. She told him his appendix had burst and he’d almost died as she handed him some water. the nurse interrupted them to give him some pain meds which made him very tired, he drifted in and out of consciousness as they kicked his mom and brother out, hed slept the whole day and visiting hours had ended. _

* * *

_ He woke early the next morning to a social worker gently shaking his arm, he hissed in pain and pulled away. _

_ She mistook his reaction for being because of his surgery when in reality, it was because of how light she’d touched him. “Oh, I’m sorry. You must be in a fair amount of pain, I could get a nurse?”  _

_ He rubbed at his arm and shook his head, “No thanks, the pain meds make me sleepy and I’m assuming you’re here to talk.”  _

_ she got situated in the chair his mom had been in the night before. Holding her pen to her clipboard ready to write down her judgments on his life. _

_ He sighed, “You’re here about the scars, arent you.”  _

_ She scribbled something down on the paper, “yes, they looked rather severe. Would you mind telling me a little about what caused them, they look a lot like someone hit you with something.”  _

_ He shifted in the bed, trying to get comfortable without pulling his stitches. he knew this was going to happen sooner or later and he had practiced what he was going to say. he was going to tell the truth, mostly. He just wouldn’t bring up anything that she didn’t ask about. “My father used to hit me with his belt, or sometimes an extension cord, Whatever he had on hand really.”  _

_ She nodded and continued to write “is he still in your life? Your mother brought you in alone last night, and there didn’t seem to be any new marks.”  _

_ He started picking at the tape around the IV looking almost bored, not the usual reaction to a conversation like this, but denial and repression ran in the family “He technically still has visitation, but he’s mostly lost interest. He hardly ever shows up, and when he does he just sits on our couch watching football, usually doesn’t even notice us beyond saying hello. He hasn’t done more than yell in two years.”  _

_ he watched her scribble for a good two minutes “How does your mother treat you?” _

_ He rolled his eyes “She doesn’t hit me. If you looked under her shirt, you’d find some very similar scars.” _

_ She gave him a look like she didn’t believe and he matched her head-on. things had just started to get better at home, he wasn’t going to let this lady, who didn’t know anything about him beyond what she could see, mess everything up. And he definitely wasn’t going to let her blame his mom.  _

_ She tabled that topic, seeing how determined he was to protect his mom she knew she wouldn’t get anything out of him. “What about your little brother? Did your father hurt him too?”  _

_ He shook his head, “Father didn’t notice that Remy existed and I was able to distract him if he did.” He laughed self-deprecatingly “At least I’m good for one thing, right?” this was the only time he would show how he really felt about himself, as soon as she left him alone, he’d pick the mask back up and everything would be ‘fine’ again.  _

_ She wrote down one more thing and then got up to leave, “I’m going to go track down some people, I’ll be back later to talk some more and give you some papers to fill out. Thank you for telling me this, I know it was hard.” He shrugged, talking had taken a lot out of him, his stitches hurt and he just wanted to sleep. _

_ He never did see her again, he was one of those cases that ‘fall through the cracks’. There were a lot of cracks in his tiny town, the foster system was stuffed to the brim already, so cases where the kids weren’t in immediate life-threatening danger usually amounted to nothing. They discharged him later that day with strict instructions to rest, drink fluids, and keep the stitches dry. That wasn’t a problem with him, he was perfectly okay with lying on the couch all day. _

  
  


~~~~~

Two months later-

  
  


_ There was such a thing as too much sleep, his stomach was healed now, but he hadn’t started doing things again. Instead, the only activity in his life right now was getting up to use the bathroom, eating whatever food came in a bag, and switching from the couch to his bed. although he was on the couch less and less. He knew this was depression, and he knew he should reach out, but he was so tired. And when he had tried to tell his therapist about what had happened when he was little, he’d had accused him of lying for attention, Patton had only managed to get the tiny dose of Prozac by being annoying and not giving up. _

_ As it was now, he may as well not have been on anything. He was debating with himself the pros and cons of killing himself or telling his mom about the depression. On one hand, if he died he wouldn’t have to deal with anything. But if he was dead, and things got better again, he wouldn't be there to see it. After going around in circles for days, he decided to tell her, and if she reacted badly, he’d kill himself. Best of both worlds _

_ He pushed himself out of bed and went into the kitchen where his mom was washing dishes, flopping down at the table and resting his head on his knees. “Hey, mom. Can I talk to you about something?”  _

_ she turned the water off and wiped her hands “Sure honey, what’s up?”  _

_ he sighed, “Umm...I don’t really know how to talk about this, I’ve been hiding it for a long time.”  _

_ She leaned against the counter growing increasingly worried “that’s okay, take your time.”  _

_ he sat there for a few minutes as he tried to figure out how to phrase it. “So, you know how I’ve been seeing Dr.peters?” He started slowly, she nodded and motioned for him to continue “Well anxiety isn’t the only thing going on, I’ve stopped trying to talk to him about it because he says I’m faking for attention. Which isnt really important right now”  _

_ his breathing was speeding up as he continued rambling, he would have kept going if his mom hadn’t interrupted him, “Patton, slow down, think about what you’re saying” That’s what she used to say when Remy was having a particularly hard time pronouncing something,  _

_ He took a deep breath and stuffed his face into his knees as he rapid-fire mumbled out, “I tried to kill myself when I was nine and I wanna try again.”  _

_ It was quiet for a minute as his mom tried to decipher what he’d said, eventually she gave up, “I couldn’t understand what you said sweetheart, can you say it again? To me instead of your knees?”  _

_ he looked up at her, tears threating to fall and searched her face while working up the courage to repeat himself “when I was nine...I tried to kill myself...And I wanna try again.” _

  
  


_ She looked at him like he’d grown a second head, “What, How? why?! Was it because I was sick? Or because of what happened with your grandfather?” She slowly sat across from him as she absent-mindedly whispered: “Is this my fault..?”  _

_ He quickly shook his head, “No! No, it wasn’t your fault, you didn’t do anything wrong!” That wasn’t completely true, he subconsciously resented her for making him raise his brother, but he wouldn’t realize that for years to come.  _

_ “What do you want me to do?”  _

_ he blinked, He honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead, “I...I think I need to go to the hospital.”  _

_ They were both crying as she asked, “are you sure? Once we go you can’t change your mind, this is something that you can never take back.”  _

_ He wasn’t sure, but deep down he knew that if he spent another night in the house, he would do something else that he  _ _ really _ _ couldn’t take back. he stood to go grab his kitty stuffie so he'd have something to comfort him during this fiasco, he didn’t know if they would let him have it wherever he ended up, but he couldn’t think of any way to hurt himself with it so he figured there was a chance. As he turned to walk down the hall he quietly replied, ”I’m sure” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Patton has an emergency appendectomy and the hospital sends a social worker to ask him about his scars, which results in precisely nothing. 
> 
> fun fact: anesthesia can exacerbate depression.
> 
> I'm going to look at this after I sleep to see if I screwed anything up, but I think things are the way they need to be.
> 
> My mental health is all screwy right now, I'm currently going up on my anti-depressants and until everything levels out my energy and motivation are about as predictable as an invisible alligator on crack. I'm currently going to sleep either at 7 pm or, like today, at 4am. I only have to leave my house on Thursday this week, and even that isn't certain, so the days are all blurring together. I'm not having a very fun time. also, I've been writing chapter ten for three days now, and it's only half done, so depending on how my brain decides to be in the near future, I might need to change my update schedule around a bit. 
> 
> whatever, this is a problem for future me.
> 
> The holidays are here and they are chaotic. I don't generally like the holiday season, too many memories, too many smells, and too many people. but my mom isn't in the hospital this year, so that's good. anyways, I'm rambling. I'll see y'all on Saturday if I can remember when Saturday is. I'm going to bed.


	8. It's Target time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patton and Marina go to Target and meet a certain fabulous red-shirted extrovert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter will always hold a special place in my heart as the chapter that the universe didn't want written. while I was writing it I had writer's block, but that's not all. A creepy-crawly death dealer fell on me from my curtains, my cat knocked over my bookshelf, my brother got into it with a friend on skype which caused me to dissociate for about an hour, and I spilled water all over my lap. But I prevailed against the cosmos! haha!
> 
> Chapter Warnings:  
food, food mention, panic attack mention, anxiety, shoplifting mention, mild swears, calorie counting, past anorexia/bulimia mention, throw-up mention.  
Tell me if I missed something.

September 2019-

Patton had always really liked Target, he didn't know why specifically, maybe it was because It was better for his senses. it definitely smelled better than Walmart or Albertsons, kinda like popcorn and dryer sheets, and it felt less crowded. It probably also had something to do with the fact it used to be exciting to go to because he didn't have one where he grew up, so it would feel like an adventure whenever they were far enough away from home to go to a Target.

He and Marina were waiting at the stoplight around the corner while she was singing offkey and unashamedly loud to one of the very few Panic! At the Disco songs on his playlist. 

He turned it down and interrupted her, "so, you'll never guess what happened yesterday" 

they started moving again as Marina glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, "it's rude to disrupt a girls jam session, but now you've got me curious, so spill." 

"Rem and I got into a bit of a fight when he and my mom were helping unpack my stuff," Patton said as He fidgeted with the black spinner ring on his left hand that she had gotten him when he came out as ace.

she snorted, "I would expect nothing less from that caffeine powered sass monster" 

he laughed at that, she and Remy had an interesting relationship, they were so similar that he could swear they were twins if she wasn’t two years older and from Utah. that was both good and bad. they would butt heads quite frequently, but if they teamed up, they became unstoppable. There were a lot of nicknames shot back and forth, some of them pretty inappropriate. she called him 'sass monster', and he called her a lot of things, but the most common one was 'crazy'

"yeah I know, not a surprise. But he was being nosey and trying to get into the box with all my little stuff in it so I sorta panicked and tackled him, which was how I met Virgil. He walked in right as we fell over." he said as they pulled into the parking lot

Getting out of the car Marina said "why do so many of your first impressions involve falling on top of someone, It's gotta be a curse or something... Sorry, my ADHD brain got in the way, what happened next, did Sass Monster find out about smol Pat? I assume the answer is no because I didn’t get a call last night." 

They got out of the car and started walking toward the cart return. Marina had just dropped her purse and the backpack, which she refused to let him carry, into the cart when

he said: "Actually, I told him willingly. of course it was in the middle of a panic attack, but that doesn’t change the fact that I chose to tell him."

Her eyebrows shot up and she looked at him like she thought he was suddenly going to do a backflip "you did what now?" 

They walked through the automatic doors as he replied, "I know, I never thought it would happen either. He took it surprisingly well, and he agreed not to tell my mom. So, that brings the count up to three people who know and don’t hate me because of it. but Emile doesn't count because he's paid not to tell, or be mean to me." 

They stopped at the little one dollar area by the doors and Marina took her coat off, tossing it carelessly behind her into the cart, "wow...I always thought I'd have to beat his ass if he found out. I still have the right to throw down if he tells anyone, or is mean to you when you're in smol bean mode. And don't sell Dr.Picani short, you're the most stable you've been in years because of him, he's too much of a fluffball to be mean to anyone who doesn't deserve it. You two are a lot alike in that respect."

She was the one person he didn't get on for swearing. she kept it a secret that he swore more than people thought, and she did it too much for it to be anything but pointless and exhausting, "violence is never the answer ‘Rina.” 

She was picking up tiny one dollar sparkly plastic pumpkins and comparing them to some unknown criteria as she said: “Normally, I’d agree with you, but no one hurts my precious cinnamon roll.” She tossed two of the pumpkins in the cart and they moved on towards the home goods section.

“What are the pumpkins for?” he asked while they stopped by the pharmacy aisle to pick up some ibuprofen for his back. She tossed some Excedrin in the cart for her migraines as they moved on.

She shrugged “ it’s pumpkin season, they’re cute, and Muffin and Porkrind like to knock any decorations off the windowsill. might as well get something that won’t break and can’t be shredded.”

They arrived at the storage bins and Patton started comparing sizes trying to find some to stack in the corner of his room “I wish I could have a cat, but they aren’t allowed on campus.” 

he was looking at the stacker drawers as she grabbed a medium collapsible box. she rolled her eyes, “you’re also allergic, I think that’s more important than a no pet rule.” She held up the box "how bout this one? it's blue and it has enough room for most of your little thingamabobs, so you'd only need two." 

While he didn't have many large things, he more than made up for it with the sheer number of itty bitty momentos he had collected over the years, from doodles to old dog collars, if it was tied to a memory that felt important, whether or not it was happy, he kept it. He could be called a hoarder, but it didn't interfere with his life and he didn't spend an excessive amount of time organizing it, so no one was really worried, it was just something that came along with him as part of who he was.

" I don’t care if I swell up like a balloon, if I ever have a chance to adopt a cat, there’s no way I’m passing it up.” He looked at the box “that'll work, go ahead and stick it in the cart. Now let's go look at the stuffed animals!"

They wandered towards the toy section, stopping every now and then to look at random things, and pick up some fairy lights for his closet hideyhole. When they finally got to the isle with the stuffed toys, He did a little happy dance, he always did it when he got excited, it was less noticeable than a grown man flapping his hands. 

he loved soft things, almost all of his clothes were made of soft fabrics and the ones that weren’t were worn over something soft or over something to provide deep pressure so that they didn’t hurt. He walked past any of the stuffed toys with rough fabrics or hard eyes. there were only two that he liked in this part of the store, and one of them was ridiculously expensive. He put the less pricey one, a purple elephant, in the cart and they moved on. 

The specific kinds of stuffie he liked were completely soft and didn’t have long ‘fur’. He wanted to get one more but most of the kind he liked was in the baby section of the store, which wasn’t really all that bad of a thing. It just meant that instead of spending an hour or so in the store, it would be more like three.

They both had baby fever, on top of Marina's sister having a newborn and Patton’s regression. So they absolutely couldn’t leave without having looked at everything from formula to strollers. A fair few people would always assume they were together and or expecting, which they had long since stopped protesting. Now they would just smile and nod, and if someone asked when they were due Marina would make something up and Patton would go along with it and then listen to her complain about how rude people were to ask things like that. It was just easier than protesting at least four times a shopping trip. They had gone down most of the aisles and were close to their destination when they passed the pacifiers,

“Wait,” She looked around to make sure no one was listening before continuing, for the sake of Patton’s anxiety that someone would overhear and ask mean questions, “I gotta get you one of these,” she said as she pointed at a blue, puppy themed Pacifier clip. “you always lose your paci, this way you could clip it, and it matches your onesie!”

He grabbed the pacifier clip and put it in the cart, “Okay, but you’re not buying me any more things, I don’t want you spending money on me, and I don’t want the cashier to think we have a baby and start asking questions, it’s bad enough when we don’t have to have a conversation.”

They rounded the corner and finally found what they’d been looking for as she replied: “you’re being paranoid. nobody will say anything, the people who work the registers are dead inside from dealing with people all day, and they have self check-outs. If they do say anything, I’ll take over the conversation to talk about my sickeningly adorable nephew, who is a baby, therefore making not a lie to say that we have a baby.”

They stopped in the middle of the aisle, in front of the blankets, loveys, and stuffed animals. she started looking through them as he huffed “‘Rina, we’ve had this conversation before, lying makes my anxiety worse. Having a nephew isn’t the same as having your own kid, and either lie would freak me out. just cus my anxiety is different than yours, doesn’t make it any less real. I don’t tell you you’re being paranoid when we drive an extra fifteen minutes to find a route without a bridge” he crossed his arms and sighed, heightened anxiety always made him a bit standoffish and rude, a fact he wasn’t proud of, “ I’m sorry, that wasn’t nice, it’s just...This is tied into my PTSD too, so it’s even more upsetting when I lie about it than when I just lie.”

She picked up a blue baby blanket and a tiny stuffie for her nephew and shrugged, “It’s no biggie, you didn’t hurt my feelings. You’re right that I shouldn’t dis you, even if I don’t get it.” She held up the tiny white bear and shook it, it made a little jingly noise, she looked nervous as she asked, “You think Jackson will like it?”

That made him smile again “Kiddo, he’s three weeks old, he likes food, sleep, and cuddles. What You really want to know is if Katy will like it, She’s your big sister, she’ll like it because she loves you.”

She stuck her tongue out at him,” screw you for your logic and good understanding of my feelings.”

He looked over the stuffies and picked out a surprisingly realistic turtle, “I will name him  _ Shell _ don, It’s quite a so _ fish _ ticated name.” 

He grinned, looking extremely proud of his spectacular ocean pun as Marina looked like she was reevaluating her life choices. they put everything in the cart and headed for the self-checkouts, passing by the cafe so she could grab some Pokemon cards for her older nephew, they both knew what it felt like to be too young to really get why everyone was getting stuff for the baby and nothing for you. As they walked up to the self-checkout stations, they were met with a chain that said ‘sorry out of order’. 

Patton started getting anxious about having to go to a cashier as Marina said, “we could just jack it, the elephant and paci clip will fit in my bigass purse and the turtle would fit in your backpack. Then the only baby stuff would be for my nephew.”

He turned to her with an annoyed look on his face, “No, no, no. Stealing is worse than lying, I still feel bad for the one time I did it and that was 11 years ago. We can’t get in trouble for lying about this, we could go to  _ jail _ for shoplifting.” he started walking towards the doors, “No, I’ll give you the money for my things and go wait in the car.” 

She blocked his path with the cart, “hell no, you are not leaving me to deal with going through a line alone, you know it freaks me out just as much as it does to you, your my best friend and I love you, but if you won’t agree to my plan, then you have to at least suffer with me. Besides, it’s lunchtime and we’re going to the cafe here so I can get an Icee and save gas.”

He sighed and reluctantly went along with her they walked over to the checkouts, they picked the shortest line, which they realized, also happened to have the most boisterous cashier. But they had immediately been boxed in, so they couldn’t leave to try to find someone less excitable. They put all their stuff on the belt as Patton wondered if this was going to be one of those ‘God pokes the ant farm’ moments where he had a full-on panic attack in public, he was ok so far, but he was getting there. He didn’t know why his anxiety was so bad today, It could have something to do with all of the stress that he was anticipating with college.

The lady in front of them finished her transaction and grabbed her stuff while the cashier cheerfully said: “Have a wonderful day madame and good luck with your husband’s retirement party!” he started scanning their things and flashed an attractive smile “Greetings beautiful lady, and equally handsome gentleman, How has your shopping adventure been so far?”

If Patton wasn’t so anxious he’d probably find the red-shirted extrovert cute. right now, however, he was too focused on not drawing attention to how anxious he was that he didn’t even notice that he’d said something. leaving Marina to be the one to socialize, which wasn’t all that unusual. His anxiety caused him to try to fade into the wallpaper, while hers caused her to become louder. When either of them was completely comfortable it’s like they switched bodies. 

He reached into the cart and grabbed her purse and his wallet as Marina replied, “ How are you this happy working as a cashier?” 

The casher laughed as he scanned the Excedrin “That’s a question I get quite often, I merely wish to make people’s day a little brighter!” He grabbed the little bear and the blanket “Oh, Shopping for a little Prince or princess, are we? How old?”

Patton fished 50 bucks out of his wallet and shoved it at her with a look that said ‘I told you so’. She Ignored it and took the cash, “My nephew’s a month old on Friday. Can we pay half with cash half with card?”

The cashier put the last thing into the bag and hit the button for the card reader “Why of course! Just insert your card and then I’ll take your cash”

“Cool,” She stuck her card in the reader and Patton sighed, relieved that the interaction was almost over.

The cashier took the cash and circled the bottom of the receipt, “thank you for coming in, I hope you two wonderful people have a great rest of your day.’ he handed it to her “My name’s Roman and if you’d fill out the little survey right there, I would be very appreciative.”

She removed her card and handed Patton the receipt to stow haphazardly into her purse “Well if anyone was going to stick in my head enough for me to remember to actually do the survey, it’d be you” 

she took the bags and they moved toward the cafe as Roman called after them

“Thank you!”

  
  


Marina parked the cart by a table, “You stay here, I’ll get us something. I know that you’re on edge and that ordering will make you even more upset. I promise I won’t get you something over 700 calories.”

He sighed and flopped down at the table, “Thanks ‘Rina” 

“Sure thing, This makes up for me dissing you earlier, and for somehow choosing the most extroverted cashier in all of Montana. But don’t expect it to become a thing” She stuck her tongue out, grabbed her wallet, and wandered off.

He was exhausted and it was only one-thirty in the afternoon, although that wasn’t new. Whenever he went into town, he ended up feeling like he’d been hit by a truck. He was worried about how he was going to handle being around people 24-7, But Emile had said he’d get used to it, and until he did he could come in more often. Out of all the Therapists he’d had, Emile was one of the best. Without him, Patton wouldn’t have even considered college, now he was living in a dorm and getting ready to spend four years of his life in  _ school _ , or at least he would try.

He sat up as Marina plopped a salad and an Arnold palmer down in front of 

Him “630 calories on the dot, pretty good huh?” she said as she sat down with a pizza turnover and a large Slurpee for herself. 

A lot of people would be put off by his calorie counting, let alone participate. But recovery was about compromise. Some people’s version of recovery consisted of getting admitted to a treatment facility and coming out brand new with a personal trainer, His didn’t. It was Emile’s suggestion to use the calorie counting as more of a goal than punishment, he was skeptical at first, but he had to admit, it worked for him. When he started he was 85 pounds and his diet consisted of gallons of sparkling water, six pieces of juicy fruit gum a day, and eating dinner to please his mom, only to barf it up as soon as her back was turned. Now, he was 135 pounds and eating about 1,500 calories a day. if he had to count calories to get there, then so be it. separating his meals into little packages made it easier to focus on ‘only’ having to eat that much right then, that was also why he ate so fast, less time spent thinking about the fact that he was eating.

He finished his food and had spent a few minutes scrolling on his phone while she caught up when they finally got up and walked out to the car to go back to his dorm “ you’re gonna stick around to help me set up my computer right?”

They got in the car and he hooked his phone up to the speakers again as she said “You know, one of these days I’m gonna have to actually teach you how to set up your desktop so I don’t have to do it anymore. I don’t know how you survived without me for fifteen years.”

He laughed “Easy, I had Remy do it. Technology isn’t my thing”

She shook her head as they pulled out of the parking lot, “Why are we friends?” 

they settled in and prepared to spend at least thirty minutes in traffic for a fifteen-minute drive and Patton said, “I don’t know, but I’m glad we are.”

She snorted, “Same dude, same.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was trying to figure out how to introduce Roman and I thought: I like Target, and I like Roman. Target's color is red, Roman's color is red... yes, yes this is perfect. And thus, Target Employee Roman was born.
> 
> on another note, I had a freakin wild Thursday, I won twenty-seven dollars on a scratch ticket and my anxiety was off the charts because I bought and smuggled some diapers home. I don't have a job and I'm currently in the process of getting disability, so I have to take opportunities when they come. my therapist helped me come up with a cover story as to why my backpack looked more full than when I left in the morning but I didn't even have to use it. which was nice, I don't really like lying. I don't have a license so I have to ride with her if I need to go into town because we live too far out of town to use the bus.
> 
> My mom knows about the regression and absolutely hates it. and the last time she found my little stuff we had a big fight, and I lied to get her to leave me alone, saying I wouldn't do it anymore. she doesn't get that it's not always voluntary. I lie to my mother a fair bit, Deceit would be proud. 
> 
> Then after I successfully got home without any fighting, I was getting ready to take out the trash and found a fat little mouse stuck in the trashcan, I tried to help him outside and he climbed me and yeeted himself back inside and under the couch. fast forward to one am, I'm trying to write chapter ten for the sixth day in a row and my cat comes into the living room makes eye contact with me and drops a different mouse on the floor, which I proceed to catch and put in a jar, it was too cold to put him outside. so I was going to keep him overnight until it was above zero, I checked on him fifteen minutes later and he'd died. The cat had squished him too much, I think. I went outside and buried him, I used hot water to thaw the ground, I just didn't feel right dumping him in the trash.
> 
> also, I have recently gotten a Tumblr,https://birds-are-my-jam-fam.tumblr.com/, come chat if you want
> 
> Anyway, my brain is still being wonky, so if I can't get the next two chapters done by Tuesday, I'm gonna go to only Saturdays for a while.  
I hope all y'all are doin good and I'll see you soon!


	9. A cry for help can be a frustrating thing to manage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patton has his first experience in mental health care, and let me tell you, he is not impressed with the doctor, the nurses, however...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back to posting real story chapters!! yay!  
This is one of my favorite chapters that I've written so far, and also one of the most angsty and sad. although it's a past chapter so that should be expected by now...aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway
> 
> Chapter warnings:  
panic attack, suicidal thoughts, past suicide attempt, dissociation, implied sexual abuse, physical child abuse, past child abuse, death mention, self-hatred, drug abuse mention, drug-seeking mention, terrible medical care, dismissal of suicidal thoughts, swearing, food, crying, hospitals, blood mention, needles, blood draw, stabbing mention, night terror.
> 
> the blood draw is between the 1st cut  
the night terror and the yelling of the swear word is between the 2nd cut and is summarized in the end notes  
Let me know if I missed anything.

April 2014-

_ They had spent two hours in the waiting room after one of the most awkward conversations of his life, it was weird telling a stranger that he was suicidal, and he hated the way the nurse working reception had instantly looked at his mom like she’d done something wrong. His mom had tried her best with what she had, she could’ve made some different decisions, but she was a good person and had never hurt him, so she didn’t deserve the dirty look the woman gave them as she put a flimsy little plastic bracelet around his wrist and led them to the part of the waiting room for patients awaiting triage _

_ They didn’t talk much while they were waiting, his mom just stared at the little tv that was mounted on the wall and he sat curled up in one of the uncomfortable chairs fiddling with the bracelet, squishing Kitty to his chest. He was glad that they had let him keep his Kitty, it made him feel a little bit better. it was cold and boring in the waiting room and he wasn’t above admitting that he was scared. It wasn’t his first time in a hospital waiting room by far, but this time was different. He had no idea what was going to happen when they got around to seeing him. Would they let his mom stay with him? Would he stay in this hospital, or go to another one? Would they just ignore him like Dr. Peters had? _

_ Too many questions. he didn’t like questions, they made him even more anxious than normal. He felt bad for interrupting everyone’s life, his mom had dropped everything she was doing, told his brother that they were going to the hospital and she didn’t know when they’d be back and then told him to call 911 and go to the neighbor's if something happened. He didn’t know why she’d left Remy at home, maybe she didn’t want him to know about him wanting to die, Maybe she didn’t have the energy to deal with two kids during this little adventure. _

_ “Patton?” A nurse wearing bright green scrubs holding a clipboard came out of a tiny room off to the side of the room they were currently in. They stood up to go with her when she stopped them, “I’m gonna need to talk to you alone hun” _

_ He looked at his mom, and she smiled back at him. It wasn’t a real smile though. when she really smiled her eyes squinted like she was looking at something bright. She always said she envied his smile, he and his father were the only ones in the family who could smile with their eyes open, she’d said it made for better photos, he didn't agree. _

_ He looked back at the nurse, she was short with brown hair and eyes, kinda like him, but with fewer freckles. She wore her hair up in a bun that looked like it was so tight that it hurt, She didn’t look mean though, and even though he was scared, he knew that this was the first step to feeling better. So he followed her into the little room and sat on the exam table as she shut the door. _

_ The nurse booted up the computer and opened up a file, “alrighty hun, I’m gonna ask you some questions, but this first one’s really important, okay?” _

_ he nodded, wondering what she was going to ask, it was probably something about his parents or his life at home. _

_ She turned to him and smiled, “What’s your little kitty-cat’s name?” _

_ He paused, very confused for a second, That was definitely not what he expected. He didn’t really want to answer, It was kinda stupid. But he’d named him when he was four, and you couldn’t really expect much from a four-year-old. ”Ummm...His name is Kitty…” _

_ She turned back to the monitor, “That’s a very good name for a cat. My name is Susy, It’s nice to meet you Patton, and you too Kitty.” _

_ He shifted on the table, “Nice to meet you too” he kept fiddling with the bracelet, at this point it was going to fall off before they were even done with this conversation. _

_ “Okay, with that outa the way, what’s going on that’s got you so down in the dumps? I see that Dr. Peters’s got you on 20mg of Prozac for anxiety. I take it that’s not all that’s happening up there in your noggin?” _

_ He shook his head, “No, but He doesn’t believe me, says I’m faking.” _

_ She finished typing whatever it was into the computer and got up to grab one of the combined blood pressure and pulse ox machines, “Does he now.” it sounded like it wasn’t the first time she’d heard this story, “Well, I’m new on the scene, why don’t you run it by me and I’ll see how it holds up.” _

_ He giggled as she wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his arm and stuck the little clip on his finger, he liked her, she reminded him of his grandma, which made it easier to open up to her, “This isn’t the first time I’ve felt like this when I was nine I took some pills, but my gramma made me throw them up and say I wouldn’t do it again, I don’t really remember much of it though. All I know is, one minute I was on the bathroom floor and the next I was in her bed being interrogated. She was the only one who knew, until today when I told my mom to bring me here. Gramma died last July,” his demeanor rapidly shifted from surprisingly cheery to on the edge of tears “I miss her.” _

_ She wasn’t phased, rapid mood-swings were very common in teenagers with depression, She stuck a thermometer under his tongue when he paused in his explanation, “I see, It sounds like you loved her very much. Any specific reason neither of you ever told your mom about this?” _

_ The thermometer beeped as he shrugged, “I dunno, it didn’t seem important enough. She was going through chemotherapy and a divorce at the time, I think it was probably ‘cause neither of us wanted to stress her out anymore than she already was.” _

_ She pulled the cuff off of his arm and helped him off the table, “Sounds like things have been sucky for quite a while then. Let’s go grab your mom and then we’ll get you situated in a bed, there’s gonna be somebody to babysit you when she leaves, and we’re gonna have to ask you to use the bathroom with the door open, but we’ll see if we can’t get things feeling a bit better.” _

_ He sighed, He didn’t like the bathroom part, but if he was gonna give this whole help thing a try, he couldn’t back out at the first thing he didn’t like. They went to get his mom and he kinda zoned out as the adults talked, he was tired, this was the most physical activity that he’d done since before he’d gotten his appendix taken out. _

_ Susy paused at a cupboard and grabbed a paper bag and a set of really weird looking scrubs, “I’ll leave you to get changed, go ahead and put your clothes in here and we’ll have your mom take them home when she leaves, you can keep your boxers. Someone will be along to take a little blood so we can make sure there’s nothing else going on, Do you want any water or apple juice before I go tell Dr. Peters you’re here?” _

_ He grabbed the scrubs and cringed, these were going to be sensory hell, "no thank you. It was nice to meet you miss." _

_ She laughed "my, you are polite, I don't think I've ever met someone in crisis that was concerned about please and thank you before. It was nice to meet you too, I hope you and Kitty get to feeling better." she drew the curtain around the door to the room and left. _

_ He went into the little bathroom, got changed, and then sat on the bed to do some more waiting. His mom didn't say anything, she just sat in the chair next to his bed and held his hand while she stared out the window._

* * *

_Fifteen minutes later a male nurse came in to draw his blood, he didn't really care, he'd gotten his blood drawn when he'd been prescribed the Prozac, and he had an IV when he had appendicitis. Despite what you'd think, his oversensitivity didn't make the actual needle stick worse, it was just the feeling around that they had to do that was worse than an average person, and they usually had to do a lot of feeling, he had inherited his mother's tiny, hard to poke veins. He just breathed through it and in no time, it was over. The nameless nurse walked out and they waited for another three hours._

* * *

  
  


_ When Dr. Peters finally arrived, someone had been by to take his dinner order, and he already received his food. he'd gotten a tiny chicken breast and some green beans and was currently battling to use his Fold-a-Fork, someone had apparently been set on making a suicidal person’s life even harder when they invented it, for the safety of course. Dr.Peters walked in like he was angry to be there, then again, he wasn't the most pleasant person to begin with. He was a tall Indian man, with a surprisingly thick accent for having such an English sounding last name, but you can’t judge a book by its cover. "Good evening Patton, I see your state of mind hasn't improved since we last spoke." _

_ Patton just waved and went back to attacking the chicken, he didn't have the patience to be nice and his mom always said 'if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all' _

_ Dr.Peters pulled out a pen and opened a little black notebook "Patton, do you like to be here? Has your need for attention gotten this bad?" _

_ His mom looked at the doctor in shock, "what the hell is that supposed to mean!?" _

_ The doctor looked down at her and spoke like he was talking to a particularly slow four-year-old, "I'm sorry Mrs. Stewarts, but I am talking to your son, it's important that he answers for himself." _

_ She sat back in the chair and crossed her arms, "My last name is Hart, I told you that I changed it back when I got divorced, and I'll thank you not to speak to my son that way." _

_ Dr. Peters didn't look intimidated, he just scribbled something down in his notebook and began the questioning again. "How about I phrase it this way, if I gave you a steak knife right now, would you stab yourself in the chest?" _

_ Patton paused his attack on the chicken and looked at Dr.peters, the guy wasn’t even sitting down. like he expected to be in and out and still have time for coffee. he wondered how many people had died because Dr.Peters had ignored them or pushed them over the edge. _

_ What was he supposed to say to that, he was pretty taken aback. He knew that Dr.Peters was not a nice person, but now he was thinking something more along the lines of ‘cruel crazy person with a medical license’. He put his sorry excuse for a fork down and started fiddling with the bracelet again as he actually gave the absurd question some thought. _

_ Would he...No, no that would hurt, and he was a coward. He didn’t want it to hurt, that was why he’d chosen pills, he didn’t want to feel anything before he stopped existing, he just wanted to stop. He had plenty of opportunity in the past to stab himself, hell, he lived next to a train track, Dr.Peters would probably think that was even better. But no, that wasn’t how he wanted to go. He knew his mom would want a funeral, and he didn’t want to be some bloody mess in a box. _

_ Patton tilted his head as he stared at the floor “I don’t...think so? I’m not sure what you want me to say.” _

_ The bracelet finally snapped as Dr.peters replied, “Simple, I want you to tell the truth. I want you to admit that you’re only here for drugs, probably to share with your friends.” _

_ His mom stood up, probably to start yelling, but he beat her to the punch, he kept bending the broken plastic bracelet back and forth as he quietly replied “I don’t have friends, and even if I did I wouldn’t be the bad influence friend, if anything I’d be the dad friend, making puns and telling them to get some sleep.” He sighed and scratched at the uncomfortable paper scrubs with a sort of sad smile, “ If you gave me a bottle of pills right now though, I would probably lock myself in the bathroom and chug ‘em, I did it before. I’m too soft for stabbing. I read somewhere that girls are the most likely ones to overdose, Father always told me I was a pussy. I guess he was right.” _

_ His mom just watched him as he rambled, she was crying, looking at her little boy as he called himself horrible names while talking about killing himself like it was an everyday conversation. what happened, how did he convince her that he was a bubbly goofball with a hard past and little bit of anxiety, how could she not have seen this? _

_ “I..I’m gonna go get some coffee, I’ll be back" _

_ He felt his heart break as she walked out, this was a mistake. He should’ve just stolen more of mom’s pills, mixed it with the Prozac and ended it. Oh well, he was here now, couldn’t do anything about it till they let him go home. Dr. Peters wrote something in his notebook and turned to leave, “You’re quite convincing, I’m going to prescribe you 15mg of Clonidine, bump your Prozac to 80mg, and give you Trazodone to calm you down. We’ll keep you here overnight to see how you react to the Trazodone. Good-bye Patton.” and with that, he walked out. _

_ That was weird, For saying that he thought Patton was just after drugs, he sure put him on a lot of them. Life was so confusing, and Patton was so tired, he gave up on the fork and used his hands to eat the chicken and green beans so that nobody would give him a hard time about it, he was sure if he had another confrontation he’d just start crying. _

_ He was washing his hands when his mom got back, she met him at the bathroom door “they’re kicking me out, it’s somehow nine o’clock already. I love you, I hope that this ordeal will help somehow. I don’t know what else to do but...” She put her hand against his face and he grit his teeth and tried not to pull away, she hardly ever touched him, and he knew she needed this, so he stayed quiet. “I can’t lose you.” they were both crying as she kissed his forehead, grabbed her things, and left. _

_ As his mom left a male nurse came in with a pack of cards and sat down in the chair by his bed, “Hey, I'm gonna be your sitter tonight, my name’s Elis. Wanna play cards until bedtime? I’ll give you your meds in a few hours, but no sense in being bored until then. You don’t have to though, it's not medically required.” _

_ Patton chuckled, shrugged, and sat down. They played cards for the rest of the time until Elis got up and went to the nurses station across the hall to get his meds and print him a new bracelet, he never left his line of sight, it felt weird to have someone be paid to make sure he didn’t kill himself by braining himself on the bathroom sink or something. He took his meds and The trazodone knocked him out. _

  
  


Three hours later.

* * *

** _Patton sat up in bed and got up to go have breakfast, he was excited, today was his fourth birthday and he got to spend the entire day with grandma going to different places around town. He went downstairs, wait that was weird, his house didn’t have stairs, when did he get to grandmas? He thought he’d just woken up. He must have zoned out again, he was doing that a lot lately, hed zone out and come to in a different place. _ **

** _He rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs and was suddenly in a very discombobulated kitchen, it was kinda a mix of the different kitchens of all the houses he’d ever lived in. daddy and Granpa were sitting at the table, and mommy was holding Remy on her hip over at the stove as she made pancakes. “Hey sweetie, Happy birthday. Go sit with granddad and give him some birthday sugar.”_ **

** _He took a step back, what!? “No, I don’t want to!!” _ **

** _Noticing suddenly that he was taller, he looked down, he was fourteen now but when he looked up, Remy was still one. this wasn’t making any sense, what was going on?_ **

** _His mom shrugged as Father walked over and took Remy, “Okay, I guess it’s Remy’s turn today.”_ **

** _Patton rushed forward as Remy started squalling, trying to push Father away. “No! No, please! I’ll do it, I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t hurt him!_ **

** _Father put Remy down in a highchair that had appeared out of nowhere, But he was getting used to the nonsensical mayhem that was going on. Father crossed the room in two strides and pulled on his arm, Hard. There was an audible snap and Patton screamed, Father just laughed as he pulled him down an impossibly laid out hallway._ **

** _They went into his Grandma’s Bedroom and father threw him down on the floor, Father just started unbuckling his belt when…_ **

_ FUCK!! _

* * *

_ Patton shot up in the Hospital bed, breathing like he just ran a marathon. Elis was next to his bed looking very concerned, he had reeled back to avoid getting hit when Patton sat up, he was saying something, but there was no sound. _

_ It took a second for Patton to come out of the panicked haze and realize where he was. The first thing he noticed was how the paper scrubs and blankets were stuck to the skin around his bottom, he looked down. His lower half was soaked, he started crying as he realized that he'd wet the bed, they were probably gonna yell at him. tell him how stupid he was and make him go back to sleep without changing the sheets. That's what'd happened the one time his father had caught him in this situation, father had hit him too, but he doubted that they would do that, a rash from sitting in wet pants for too long was easy to hide, bruises were not. _

_ He curled up in the bed and started apologizing over and over while he continued hyperventilating, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm stupid I know. I'm sorry, I'll go back to bed." _

_ Elis tried to put a hand on his back but stepped back when he flinched so hard he made a squeaking noise. Some other nurses had run in when they heard the scream. They noticed the situation and left to get some new scrubs while Elis tried to get his attention, "Patton, hey, it's okay. You didn't do anything wrong, nobody's mad at you. Why don't we go to the bathroom and you can take a shower and get into some clean scrubs while somebody changes the sheets." _

_ Patton nodded and got up, he was willing to go along with anything as long as it got him out of these clothes. _

_ They walked into the bathroom and Elis held up a towel while he stripped and got into the shower. He turned the water on and sat on the little bench in the back of the stall as he continued to cry. _

_ Fifteen minutes later he wrapped up in a towel and stepped out into the tiny bathroom, someone had taken the wet clothes and dropped off some new scrubs. Elis handed them to him and turned around to give him as much privacy as possible, he had to have someone in the bathroom with him so they could make sure he didn't hurt himself, his tiny town didn’t actually have a real psych ward, so he was just on the pediatric floor with someone to watch him. Patton set the scrubs down next to the sink and sighed when he noticed the pull-up they had given him instead of underwear. _

_ Elis correctly assumed what the sigh was about, "I know, it sucks. But we don't know if this is gonna happen again, and it would be better if you didn't have to take another shower. _

_ Patton started getting dressed as he replied, “It’s okay, It’s not the first time I’ve had to wear something like this. Just, don’t tell my mom, please.” _

_ They walked back out into his room, the bed was clean and someone had put an infant’s hospital gown on Kitty, who thankfully had fallen on the floor before his night terror had started. He laughed at the gown, the nurses here were nice, he was glad that he hadn’t met anyone else like Dr.Peters. He got back in his bed and laid down to try to sleep again _

_ Elis sat back down and picked up the book that he’d been reading, “Do you want something to drink? Hot cocoa always makes me feel better after a nightmare.” _

_ Patton shrugged, “I think I’m just gonna go back to sleep, thank you though.” _

_ Elis stuck his nose back in the book, “suit yourself. I hope you get some more sleep, you seem like a good kid, let me know if there’s anything I can do to make you more comfortable.” _

_ He was as okay with his situation as he could be right now honestly, his head was getting fuzzy and he didn’t really care what the nurses saw, there wasn’t much dignity he could preserve after his little breakdown. He stuck his thumb in his mouth as he started to drift off. If Elis noticed, he didn’t say anything. The rest of the night was calm as Patton slept dreamlessly. _

  
  
  


9 a.m.-

  
  


_ The next thing he knew it was light out and Elis had been replaced with an extremely bored-looking CNA who was scrolling his phone while loudly smacking his gum. He sat up and made a face, his pull-up was soaked. He was definitely glad that they’d given him one, he did not want to go through that whole wet bed issue again. The CNA stood up and went into the bathroom to grab something and came back with a new set of flimsy-looking boxers, some sweatpants, and a t-shirt. Patton didn’t recognize any of it, it must have been from the clothing closet that they had for homeless people who didn’t have enough clothes. _

_ The CNA held the clothes out as his gum went Smack pop, smack, “ya wanna go” smack, pop “take a shower?” _

_ He nodded trying not to say anything about the obnoxious gum-chewing he went into the bathroom and they did the whole routine from last night all over again, but this time he wasn’t crying. As he was getting dressed something fell out of the bundle of clothes. He shoved on the boxers and bent to pick it up before it could get wet from the shower water leftover on the floor. It was a letter, from Elis: _

* **Patton,**

**It was great meeting you, even though it wasn’t under the best circumstances. I think you’re a great kid, with a wonderful personality, and a surprising knack for poker. I think that you have a lot to live for. I know it doesn’t mean beans what another person thinks when it comes to what you have to live for, because they don’t have any experience being you, but please, just listen to what I have to say. you don’t have to remember it, it can just be in one ear and out the other.**

**I saw your scars. I know that they’re personal, and you probably hate them, but to me, it shows how strong you are to go through whatever happened and come out on the other side. You can’t change the beginning of your story, but no one can tell you how to write the rest. It’s yours, no ifs ands or buts. There will be a lot of loud, annoying people who think that they have the right to change it, but you don’t have to listen to them, you’re strong enough to start the next chapter, or write a hundred chapters. My advice, try a different setting. Get the hell outta dodge and far, far away from that quack Peters. I think you’d be a lot happier.**

**Hold the ones you love close, the world isn’t kind. But you know that better than anyone I bet. I hope that you stick around to write a long, long story, and I’m glad I got to be a part of it, and I’m sure there will be plenty more fun and exciting characters to come. Try to remember these three things, You’re not stupid, no matter what anyone tells you. Nobody has the right to determine your worth but you. And most importantly be kind. Accept people where you can, don’t judge where you can’t. You don’t have to become an ass to survive the world, despite what people think. You have something that’s very rare, and very precious, a good heart. Good luck.**

**Yours truly,**

**The very handsome and charming extra in the fabulous Patton Stewarts’ story, Elis.**

**P.s. Keep it up with the puns, they’re Punderful :)**

*

_ Patton was crying again, but this time it wasn’t from fear, this time it was because of a weird mix of bittersweet emotions as he read the letter. He read it again before he got dressed all the way and went to sit in the chair in the corner of the room. He looked out the window as he pondered what Elis had said. The CNA brought over a packet of papers that just had the information about the new meds he was taking and told him that he’d been discharged and they were just waiting on his mom to come to pick him up. _

_ Before he had read the letter he had made up his mind that he was going to go home, write some sort of note, and kill himself. Now though, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. For some reason, the words in the letter really stuck with him. Maybe it was because the person who wrote it had seen him at his worst and still thought he was worth the effort, maybe because somewhere inside him he just wanted to stop hurting so much, but didn’t really want to die. _

_ Whichever it was, he had made a new plan, he was going to keep trying until he was eighteen. He didn’t know why he picked that age, it just felt right for some reason. He would do his best to write a new chapter. It would suck, but he would try. He carefully folded the letter and stuck in his pocket. When he got home, he put it on the wall. It was what had convinced him to keep going, maybe it would work again if he needed it. Whatever the case, he knew one thing, Elis wasn’t just an extra. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Night terror summary:  
Patton has a dream that it's his fourth birthday, and then he's fourteen all of a sudden and then he sacrifices himself so Remy, whos still one for some reason, doesn't have to go through what he did, getting his arm broken in the process. Patton says the F word and dreams don't make sense. 
> 
> and with this, everything in my life is back to somewhat normal. I looked up how long this fic will take to finish posting if I keep at my one a week pace, eww math, and it's an overwhelming 19 and a half-ish months, wow. probably doesn't help that I added two chapters to the outline while I was in the crisis house...oops. that's just over one year, which means if we continue with the current pattern, I will have approximately three more mental health crises while posting. I've already had my two for this year.
> 
> I actually still have the real-life version of Elis' Letter almost eight years later, the guy who wrote its name was Josh. he was cool, I hope he's doing good.
> 
> Christmas is over! YAY!
> 
> I got my mom a scarf and some lotion, my brother twenty bucks, and the rest of my estranged family fifteen bucks and the exact same message in a Christmas card mailed across the country. And I received, A twenty dollar gift card to Barnes and noble from my good aunt, nothing from my bad aunt or my four uncles (75 dollars and five Christmas cards wasted in my opinion, the least you can do is say hi) a twenty-dollar steam gift card from my brother, and a BRAND-FRICKING-NEW LAPTOP from my mom!!!!!!!! 
> 
> We'd been sharing one 2006 model laptop for over a year because I lost the charger to my old one, and it was very inconvenient because she uses her laptop to teach English online over the weekends, so I would have to give it back over the weekend and I couldn't do any writing whenever she had to sub for someone. but now, I have my own beautiful blue 2019 model laptop, already covered in stickers much to my moms dismay, I don't really know the stats, but it goes on AO3, goes on google docs, plays music, goes on youtube, and plays Stardew Valley, so I couldn't care less.
> 
> That also gave me a reason to try to recover my Tumblr from when I was thirteen, and when I couldn't I made a new one: https://birds-are-my-jam-fam.tumblr.com/ come chat if you want. Do you know the guy from ASDF movie who tells a knock-knock joke in a mirror and then goes "I am lonlee"? that's me. come talk to me, I beg of you, I need social interaction, so, so bad. my therapist said she wishes she could prescribe friends, I'm that bad.
> 
> ...anyway. 
> 
> begging aside, I'm feeling much better and life's calming down without the stupidity of the holidays, so I will do my best come hell or high water to post next Saturday. have a good day or night and see y'all soon ~P.


	10. we have more in common than I thought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patton meanders toward the orientation assembly, eating sandwichs, doing paperwork, and learning more about his most reclusive roomie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some points in this chapter that I hate with a passion but I can't seem to get it to flow without them >:(  
this chapter is quite boring, yet another setup/filler chapter, but we're getting close to being done with those! Yipee!
> 
> Chapter Warnings:  
food, food mention, occupation therapy mention, sensory trigger mention, anxiety mention, meds. 
> 
> I think that's it.. tell me if I missed one or whatever, see you at the endnotes!

September 2019, orientation day. 

*beep beep beep beep*

It was Monday, the first thing to be heard were three different alarms going off at the exact same time. The next things were one groan, one grumbled out “Shut up!”, and one thud.

The groan belonged to Patton, as he smacked around on his bed for his phone, he kept it in his bed so he could stick his earbuds in and listen to music. It was either that or earplugs. With his super-sensitive hearing, he could hear things like the lights buzzing even if they were off and people shifting in the other rooms, he’d also conditioned his brain to get tired when he heard the same songs in the specific order every night.

When he woke up in the morning, he had a bad habit of turning the alarm off and going back to sleep for up to seventeen hours, being blessed with the magnificent talent of depression-sleep even when his mental health was good. So he had downloaded an app that forced him to do math problems before it would be quiet, they weren’t hard math problems, just things like one plus one and skip counting. If awake Patton had the math skills of a sixth-grader with a knack for guessing, sleepy Patton had the math skills of a second-grader who didn’t pay attention ninety percent of the time.

His eyes were still closed as he found his phone and manhandled his glasses off the nightstand. He opened one eye and shoved them on before looking down at his extremely annoying phone. although he hadn’t needed an alarm today apparently, with both of his roommates’ alarms he would’ve woken up anyway.

He could hear them start getting up as he mumbled the math problem under his breath “add the missing number to the sequence: seven, fourteen, blank.” He sat up and started counting on his fingers “fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. Okay, let’s try that” he put it into his phone and it finally shut up. okay, now to get up and do things. It was six and he didn’t have to be there until nine, so he had a while. 

He had showered at around midnight, after trying to sleep for three hours, so he just got dressed in the usual pants, with a light purple shirt and a dark grey hoodie tied around his waist. he wore a lot of pastels and greys, he didn’t know why. maybe those colors were more commonly made out of sensory-friendly fabric or maybe he just subconsciously liked them, he didn’t know or care, to be honest. It was just something that Remy had pointed out to him and now he thought about it every time he wore those colors, so pretty much all the time. 

He looked out into the hallway and saw Virgil leaning against the bathroom door having a staring contest with the floor, he too was completely dressed, having either taken a shower super early and gone back to sleep like Patton had or just thrown on some clothes. Logan must have been hogging the bathroom. Oh well, he was used to that with Remy, he had a mirror over his dresser so he could just use his bottle of water, cup, toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss to get ready without even leaving his room and of course, his deodorant was on the dresser too. He would rinse the cup out right before he left when everyone was done with the bathroom. It took him about three minutes to finish getting dressed and cleaned up. 

He had left his backpack out by the couch last night when he’d spent six hours drawing. While Logan sat on the chair quietly reading and Virgil was doing something or other in his room. When he would draw something he would go for hours and, if possible, finish it from sketch to done, his record was twelve hours with only bathroom breaks, and he had a feeling that there was something similar going on with Logan and his books.

He opened the door and walked to get his backpack so he could exchange art supplies for all the papers he would need for this orientation fiasco. He had grabbed the backpack and was heading back to his room when Virgil called after him, “I call the bathroom next!”

He threw his backpack onto his bed as he called back,” oh no, I’m all ready to go. I’ve got my own setup in my room. Something that I learned from having to share a bathroom with a teenage drama king.”

he closed his door and grabbed one of the bins from under his bed. This bin was the most organized thing in his possession. Everything was in this bin, all of the documents that made the government recognize that he existed. Social security, birth certificate, medical records, you name it. He dumped the art supplies on his bed for now, making it so he’d have to put them away if he wanted to sleep, and put the bin on the other part of his bed.

he had to take a detour to the accessibility office this morning to register all the stuff about his disability and get a tag for today that said he didn’t have to participate in certain events also getting something printed on his school ID giving him two breaks per class for his anxiety or PTSD if he needed them. When he went to highschool the rule was that he had to go six months without accommodations before he could use that kind of program, which is pretty much why he dropped out. He was thankful to his therapist for helping to get this set up in advance.

He pulled out the things he’d need and put them in his bag, disability paperwork, most recent medical records, a note from all of his doctors, Medicaid card, social security card, and state id. Well if anyone wanted to become Patton Hart, all they needed to do was take his backpack. Remy’s financial literacy teacher would have a stroke at the identity theft risk.

With everything in his bag and him being all dressed and ready, it was time to go get some breakfast before beginning a long day of social interaction and new scenarios. He didn’t like this sort of thing, but he was usually able to outwardly translate the pure energy that came from crippling anxiety into bubbly happiness and a desire to make new friends. In reality, it was only the first part that wasn’t true, he did want to make new friends, he just didn’t know how. he literally fell into the only friendship he’d had that lasted. Oh well, he had to make friends with somebody over the four years that he would be surrounded by eleven thousand ish students. And if he could help it, he would make friends with the two he would be living with. He walked back out into the living room to see Logan putting on his shoes and Virgil just walking out of the bathroom. He grabbed his shoes and sat down on the arm of the couch to put them on.

“Does anybody wanna go with me to grab some food?” Patton asked as he stood, pulled on his hoodie and slung his backpack over his shoulder. 

Virgil shrugged “sure I guess, where were you planning on going?”

“Oh, just the cafeteria, it would take too long to ride the bus to where I really want to go, and I don’t like uber, it’s expensive and makes me anxious.”

“ Same, let’s go then.” Virgil started shoving on his shoes and grabbed his coat.

They were halfway out the door when Patton looked at Logan over by the couch, “Logan do you wanna come?”

Logan picked his bag up from beside the couch and started towards the door as well, stopping next to Patton as he replied, “No, I have an appointment at seven forty-five. I’ll get something before the actual freshman orientation starts on the main campus, Thank you for the offer.”

All three of them walked out of the building, and Patton waved as they parted ways “good luck with your appointment!” Logan didn’t seem to hear him as he walked farther toward the administrative part of campus.

Virgil rolled his eyes as they turned to walk to the ‘food zoo’, “How are you so sunshiny to everyone, even when they react like that?”

“Hmm? Oh, I’ve always been that way” He replied while kicking every pebble they came across, “It takes more effort to be mean than to be kind, and who knows, it might be just what someone needs to get through the day. Just because I don’t always get the same thing back doesn’t make it not worth doing.”

Virgil had joined the pebble-kicking, “when you put it that way it sounds so simple, but what if you’re having a bad day? How do you keep from snapping at people?”

Patton sighed “ a lot of practice.”

“What?” Virgil looked confused by both the reaction and the reply.

They walked into the cafeteria building as he changed the subject. “Nothing. I’m gonna go to the deli and probably get some fruit or a bagel or something, do you want to meet back here after we get our food and then find a table to eat at before I have to go? I have an appointment at nine, so I would like to leave by eight-thirty at the latest”

“That sounds good, I’m gonna go find something greasy and cheap.” Virgil walked off in the direction of a breakfast stand.

Patton walked into the deli and grabbed a breakfast bagel sandwich, and some apple juice. He made his way back to the meeting spot and found Virgil waving him over to a table by the door. He set his food on the table and put the loop of his backpack around his ankle “Hey, watcha got there?”

Virgil held up a breakfast burrito that was the size of his arm, “Bacon and cheese burrito, five bucks surprisingly.” He nodded at the backpack “Why are you doing that?”

Patton unwrapped his sandwich “I have a lot of important papers in here for that appointment I mentioned, I just don’t want it to get stolen. The social security administration is hard enough to deal with normally, but when you want something from them, it’s like pulling teeth.” He started inhaling his sandwich, once he’d gotten into the habit of eating as fast as physically possible, he’d never been able to kick it. It was quite awkward in groups of people, he always felt like he was giving the impression other people should hurry up.

Virgil watched with a bemused look on his face as he ate his burrito at a normal human pace  
“How do you do that without choking?”

He finished his sandwich, digging around in his backpack for two pill bottles “It’s no different than normal eating, just faster. I don’t get why it interests people.” he popped open the first pill bottle, shook out two little white tablets, and closed it moving on to the next one with a speed that you learn from years of practice. he opened the next bottle, shook out one orange pill, cracked open the apple juice, stuck the three pills in his mouth and swallowed. All in all the whole interaction from grabbing the bottles to putting them back in his bag took about thirty seconds.

Virgil looked impressed and slightly concerned, “do you do everything on fast forward? I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone take pills that fast."

Patton laughed, “I just have a lotta practice is all. Those were for nausea and my heart, I have some condition that makes my heart freak out randomly so I get really dizzy and have to sit down or I pass out, the doctors don’t even know what it is, they just threw meds at it until something helped, and I get nauseous really easy. I’ve been on meds since I was fourteen. Six years of opening pill bottles three times a day make it autopilot by now.”

Virgil just continued to look concerned as he ate his burrito while Patton pulled out his phone.  
They sat there in silence with Patton showing Virgil cute animal pictures from Tumblr as he ate. At around eight-fifteen they got up to leave.

Patton put his backpack on and pocketed his phone, “What are you gonna do until noon?”

Virgil shrugged, “It’s not that cold out, I might as well get acquainted with the place I’m gonna spend a good chunk of my life at.”

“Yeah, that’s a pretty good idea, The campus can be confusing. The bookstore is pretty fun to wander around.”

They started walking toward the accessibility office since Virgil didn’t really have a set destination, he pulled a folded campus map out of his hoodie pocket, “I’m guessing you’re from around here.”

Patton shook his head “Not originally, I grew up on the Oregon coast. We moved here when I was fifteen. I only know about the bookstore because my mom and I used to get a lot of art stuff from there, we don’t go there much anymore because they stopped selling a lot of things."

They arrived at the accessibility office as Virgil was trying to figure out the map, “That’s cool, you’ll have to tell me the good places in town for coffee.”

Patton started up the stairs toward the doors “I should give you Remy’s number, he basically breathes coffee. This is my stop, I’m sure I’ll see you later, if not at orientation, then in the dorm. Have a nice walk.”

Virgil finally got the map turned the right way, "thanks, you have a nice appointment, or whatever." He waved and kept walking.

Patton walked through the door and paused to dig his Medicaid card and ID out of his backpack. He'd been around this block before, the first thing people asked for in these situations was usually proof of insurance and that you are who you say you are.

He walked up to the desk, a middle-aged man was working the reception. It was like someone copy-pasted dorm assignment Patton into this conversation as he started the same conversation script, with minor adjustments, "Hi! My name is Patton Hart, I’m here for an appointment at nine."

The man typed something into his computer and gestured to the waiting room "someone will be out to see you in a minute."

Patton knew that was a lie, people from any kind of disability program were never on time, but he knew that the man at the front desk couldn't do anything about it so he just smiled, "thank you! Have a nice day." 

He went to sit down in the tiny waiting area, still holding the insurance stuff in his hand, it wasn't worth shoving back in the backpack when he'd just have to dig it out again, he looked down at the picture of fifteen-year-old Patton. He was very underweight then, You could tell in the picture. he looked pale, like a strong wind could push him over. He'd gained forty pounds since then, and he had a lot more color in his cheeks. He knew that he was healthier now, but he missed being that small, he felt much less self-conscious then, well… he’d also been much less conscious then.

It was nine-fifteen when a woman in her fifties came out to get him. he was surprised, fifteen minutes was by far the shortest wait time he'd had with these sorts of things. The woman was average in everything, if Patton had to describe her in one word, it would be bland. 

She walked over to him, "are you, Patton?"

He nodded, although he wasn't quite sure why she'd asked, he was the only person in the room.

"Alright, let's get started."

Two hours later-

Patton walked out of the building with a headache, a cramp in his hand, and the id tag that all of the students at orientation got when they got their actual id cards hanging around his neck, the only difference was that his had a shiny orange stripe across the bottom. There was a matching orange stripe and with smaller yellow and purple ones on his ID card, apparently, the school had a color-coded system for disability organization so that staff would only have to glance at the tag or id to tell what accommodations were needed, it was pretty smart, although it was probably one big HIPPA violation. He had signed so many papers that the school was probably protected from those kinds of issues though. They’d given him a checklist with the different colors on it so he could check off which ones applied to him and then they had compared it to his medical records, that was also a huge privacy issue in his opinion because now anyone who had a color on their ID knew what everyone else’s color meant. But he’d been doing this sort of thing for so long that he didn’t care anymore, If anyone wanted to put the effort into figuring out what his colors meant, more power to them, it wasn’t interesting information. and part of the purpose of the system was to gauge whether or not bullying was worth investigating, so if someone wanted to be a jerk, there was a procedure for that. No accommodation program was perfect, and this was one of the most organized he’d ever heard of. 

The colors didn’t really make much sense, but he couldn’t really think of a way to make color-coding health conditions make sense. His were Orange for Sensory issues, which meant he didn’t have to participate in any of the ice breaker games later in the day that involved a lot of touching or loud noise, technically Orange meant autism, but he had both autism and sensory processing disorder, and the SPD interfered more in his life than the autism thanks to the occupational therapy, Yellow for anxiety disorder giving him one break per class and making him exempt from in front of the class work if he wanted, And Purple for PTSD giving him another break per class.

He had an hour before he had to be at the stadium across campus, so he started walking. He didn’t really need to rush and probably should have gone back to the dorm to put away the papers, but if he started walking now, he could take his time and enjoy the outside world. He really liked being in nature, especially this time of year, It was a nice temperature, it rained a lot, and thanks to the smoking rules, the campus smelled like fall, not nicotine.

While he was walking he was picking up rocks, his mom liked to paint them, and it was harder to find good ones now that they didn’t live by the ocean, so he would pick up any that he found that were good for painting, he was about halfway to the stadium and had just leaned over to try to grab a rock from under a bush when he heard someone walking on the sidewalk behind him,

“What are you doing?”

Patton startled and dropped the rocks that he’d been holding, he hadn’t been expecting the person to stop and talk to him. He turned to see Logan standing on the sidewalk behind him with a large coffee and a shiny orange stripe on his id tag. There was a moment of awkward silence as they noticed the matching tags before Patton broke the tension,

“Hi Logan. I was just picking up rocks on my way to the orientation assembly.” He pulled some out of his hoodie pocket to show him, “My mom likes to paint them.”

Logan drummed his fingers against his coffee cup and watched as Patton picked up the rocks he’d dropped and used the pause in his walk as an opportunity to put them in his backpack, as he said “since we’re both heading to the same destination, would you like to walk together? if we are going to live in such close proximity we should at least be acquainted with each other. We haven’t interacted much, and it seems that we have more in common than I previously thought.”

Patton stood and put his significantly heavier backpack back on, “that’d be nice, I’ve been wanting to get to know you, but I didn’t want to bother you.” He continued to talk as they started walking. “You seem busy most of the time, And I’ve definitely got more patience than Marina. I’m Sorry she grabbed you by the way.”

Logan took a sip of his coffee before replying, “There’s no need to apologize for her actions. You aren’t at fault for her impulsiveness.”

Patton checked the time on his phone, eleven-thirty, still plenty of time to get where they were going, "I know, but I still feel bad, she wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for me.” He put his phone away and glanced at the orange tag hanging around Logan's neck and then down at his own, now that it had been confirmed that Logan was autistic, he didn't feel as bad for suspecting, he would hate to assume someone had autism and say something, only to be wrong, which is why he hadn't said anything, he also didn't really want to bring attention to the subject before he had to, because it almost inevitably ended up with people asking a barrage of questions and, more often than not, he was too stressed or tired to deal with it. 

Patton mentally crossed his fingers that he wouldn’t offend Logan and make him go back into his shell by being upfront and asked, "I noticed your tag and I have a question, you don't have to answer it but, do you have any sensory issues that I should know about? I don't want to make you uncomfortable by doing something painful or upsetting" 

Logan adjusted his glasses, “I sincerely doubt you’ll do anything of serious issue unless you’re planning on handing me potting soil or a wet towel. I prefer not to be touched, but society dictates that a certain amount of touch is necessary. What about you, I was surprised to see your tag, if it hadn’t been brought to my attention I wouldn’t have suspected anything”

Patton laughed, “My mom would be very happy to hear that all of the OT was worth something.” he readjusted the backpack, regretting not going back to dorm to drop off some of the contents “As for sensory issues, you name it I got it, although touch is the worst one since there’s no real way to avoid touching things. I have sensory processing disorder, specifically over sensitivity”

Logan frowned into his coffee, “Yes, I was put through occupational therapy as well, no matter how many hours I spent staring at books and flashcards full of facial expressions, I couldn’t get an ‘adequate’ understanding of the social aspect of the program, much to my parent’s dismay. Forgive me if I seem rude, but I’ve never heard of sensory processing disorder”

Patton readjusted his backpack as they rounded the corner and approached the check-in in front of the stadium, “It’s not officially recognized as a standalone diagnosis yet, and it’s not talked about very often unless it significantly affects a person’s life. I’m one of the unlucky few.”

They paused to familiarize themselves with the way the assembly was set up, There was a large banner that said: ‘Welcome Freshmen!’ over three tables. The one closest to them had a huge line and a sign reading ‘Get your ID here!’ the two smaller tables had signs that read: ‘Last names A-L’ on the right, and ‘Last Names M-Z’

Logan threw his now empty cup in a nearby garbage can as he said, “We should talk more on the subject after this circus, I’ve researched plenty into Autism and Social dysfunction. not only would it be interesting, but it would also be helpful in living with someone with the disorder.”

Patton was pleasantly surprised, no one but his mom had been interested in learning more about his SPD. Remy was kind of a learn from experience person and had complained the entire time his science teacher had made him read a research paper on squids so he wasn’t interested in any reading material beyond ‘The Goodenoughs Get in Sync’ book that their mom had gotten Patton for his eighth birthday.

He knew if he just kept being patient, eventually, Logan would open up, and it seems he was right. They weren’t really friends yet, but acquaintances were better than whatever they’d been before. He smiled as they veered away from the ID table,

“I have a few books I could loan you and a couple of good articles I could recommend. It’d be cool to have someone to talk to about it who understands the having sensory issues more than the average person.”

Logan looked down at Patton’s tag, “Indeed. It seems that this is where we part for now.” 

He held up his tag which read ‘Logan Sanders’ meaning that they’d be at different check-in tables.

“Okie Dokie, see you later” Patton glanced up at Logan’s face for the first time during their conversation, having figured that he wouldn’t mind the lack of eye contact, “Hey, we have the same glasses!”

They made eye contact for a second before he went back to looking anywhere else as Logan replied: “...yup.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year people!
> 
> I'll let you decide who said shut up and whether the thud was from someone falling, or someone yeeting their alarm clock.
> 
> I hope you survived the fireworks and drunken hoards. whether or not you partied hard or just hid at home like me. I like fireworks when I can prep for tha BOOM but my neighbors were lighting professional-grade fireworks off at 8 in the evening, so that kinda put a damper on things. also, we lost the only set of car keys last Sunday, so we were literally stranded at our house until the locksmith could make a new set because we live too far out of town for Uber. I haven't left the house in 12 days!! yay! not. uugghhh, and you'd think it'd help me write, but I haven't written all week because iv slept too much, isolation is V bad for me. but we have keys now so I can jolt myself back into being by going from no outside interaction to going to Walmart on a Saturday. I have the next weeks' chapter written so I should be back then, have a wonderful whatever-time-it-is-where-you-are! so long for now.
> 
> Tumblr: https://birds-are-my-jam-fam.tumblr.com/


	11. God pokes the ant farm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when everything had started to even out, Patton is plunged right back into chaos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't my best chapter but i'm mostly happy with it. i wrote it while in crisis treatment, so i dont remember any of the writing process, which is kinda a weird feeling.
> 
> Chapter Warnings: Hospitals, IVs, Suicidal thoughts mention, Drug mentions, Doctors, Surgery mention, Cancer, Repression, Swearing.

September 2014-

_ Since Pattons hospital stay the house had settled into a new routine, Remy treated Patton like he was made of spun glass, censoring his jokes and attempting to never disagree with him, making sure to apologize first when they inevitably clashed. Inadvertently creating the tension he was trying to avoid. his mom had taken anything that he could hurt himself with out of his room. confiscating all the knives including the butter knives, and insisted on dispensing his meds, not trusting him with the bottles.  _

_ She had refused to give him the clonidine after they had figured out that he was allergic to it. It wasn’t life-threatening, but it was scary. He would get a nosebleed, and then his ears would bleed and then his gums, and so on. It made him hyperventilate the first time it had happened, he’d ended up passing out and hitting his head, getting yet another concussion, but who wouldn’t freak out if they started to look like a character in a horror movie. _

_ they’d tried to get in with Dr. Peters, but he was booked out for months, he had managed to get an appointment in October, but until then he’d just stopped taking it, It didn’t help anyway, it actually made him angry. But not his kind of angry. it felt like he was a spectator in the back of his head watching like it was a first-person videogame as his body lashed out, yelling and throwing things at the drop of a hat. Once his mom took it away, he was back to his normal in-control self so he was very okay with his mom saying he couldn’t have it anymore. _

_ He’d gotten used to his family treating him like he was broken, he didn’t like it, but he was used to it. It was their way of coping, and it wasn’t like they’d kicked him out or called him names, so he tolerated it and pretended it didn’t exist. Every time it got hard and he found himself making a plan of how to steal or cheek his pills so he could end it, he would take Elis’ letter off the wall and read it over and over until the feelings were back to their constant but manageable state. _

_ Things were moving along at a normal boring suburban pace, at least as ‘normal’ as their little bunch could get. His mom was getting headaches, but it was allergy season, so that wasn’t that worrying. it started getting worrying about two weeks after the headaches ramped up to three or four a day. She started getting sent home from work because she’d get dizzy and have to sit down, and then couldn’t control her right arm, which is bad for anyone but especially for a housekeeper. Two weeks after the dizziness started, she woke up one-day shouting, saying it felt like someone was stabbing her head behind her ears.  _

_ He’d run into the room when she shouted, “what’s wrong, do we need to go to the ER?” _

_ She tried to shake her head and shouted out in pain, once she’d gotten the pain semi under control she replied, “ no, I have an appointment with the radiologist to read my most recent scans, and I’m guessing they’re going to find something that isn’t supposed to be there, help me up.” _

_ Patton helped his mom hobble out into the living room, her balance was thrown off and she was shaking like she had hypothermia but only on her right side. Remy was in the living room playing videogames on his PlayStation. _

_ Remy paused his game when Patton helped their mom to sit down on the couch and got up from his beanbag, “ What’s goin on, You’re not lookin too hot there sister.” _

_ Usually, she’d laugh at that phrase coming out of a ten-year-old boy’s mouth but she just put a shaky hand over her face and sighed, “There’s something wrong. I don’t know what it is, but Pat and I are going to go to the cancer center for my appointment and to be annoying until they take me seriously, you know, the usual routine.” _

_ Remy went back to his beanbag and unpaused, “ gotcha gurl, do I have to come?” _

_ “No, the less people the better, minimize the chaos.” Their mom replied as Patton pulled her up off the couch and started helping her over to the shoe rack  _

_ Patton put on his coat as his brother gave a thumbs up before he got frustrated with the game and chucked the controller into a pile of pillows specifically for that purpose. He helped his mom into her coat and they set off down the front steps they managed to get to the car without incident.  _ _   
  
_

_ They were about halfway there when Patton spoke up, “Do you think it’s back? What are we gonna do if it’s back?” _

_ His mom sighed, face twisted in concentration as she attempted to drive on the winding Oregon coast highways with one side of her body acting like it wanted to do the macarena, _

_ “I am almost 100% sure that it’s back, that or I’m having a late reaction to something in the maintenance chemotherapy. Remember when that bimbo gave me the wrong drugs?”  _

_ He snorted, his family had quite the mouth, they could out-swear pretty much anyone, he chose not to but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have the vocabulary. The only time he would swear on purpose was when he was alone in his room, especially if he was having a bad sensory day. The night terrors didn’t count in his opinion. _

_ His attention was brought back to the present by his mom putting the car in park, he’d been stuck in his head the rest of the way to the cancer center. He got out of the car and helped his mom out and up to the building. They had to check-in before they could go any further, and the line was always long. Thankfully, they had extra wheelchairs for the people who couldn’t stand for very long. He pushed his mom over toward the counter and got in line, people would look over and see how bad she was shaking and the pained look on her face and, like sane people, they’d move out of the way letting them cut line to get the first part of the process over. The building wasn’t just a cancer center, there were three different centers in one, but there was only one check-in desk so three centers’ worth of patients were waiting in one line with two receptionists. With that situation, there was no way it wouldn’t be chaotic and majorly frustrating. _

_ Patton was starting to get overwhelmed with the number of people they were surrounded by. Every person had their own base smell plus whatever beauty products, laundry soap, and the food that they’d eaten this morning. When he got overwhelmed he had one of two reactions, if it was just him he got really quiet and submissive, but when it involved the safety of his family he’d get cold-hearted and snappish, telling people his opinion of whatever they had been doing regardless of if it was asked for, but in a polite tone of voice and with positive, but aggressive no-nonsense, body language so that people were never sure if he was just not aware he was being rude Or knew exactly what he was doing. Which put them in the awkward position of not knowing whether to talk back or just take it if fear of being rude themselves. _

_ Today it was the latter, with all of the stress of whatever the hell was going on with his mom and the fact that the receptionist was being very rude saying his mom needed to stand because she’d walked in and it was wrong of her to take a wheelchair from someone who needed it, he was on the brink of snapping at her and telling her exactly what he thought about her opinions. _

_ Thankfully, he didn’t get to that point. His mom’s oncologist, Dr. Brook, happened to be walking out for lunch and saw the situation. with how in pain his mom looked and how aggravated he was, she knew something was wrong and pushed past to get to them, _

_ “Megan, Patton! What’s wrong?”  _

_ Dr brook said as she ushered them back past the glaring receptionist and toward her office, and if he glared back and stuck his tongue out, who could blame him, he was just a bratty teenager right? His mom ignored his battle with the receptionist and tried to articulate what was happening, _

_ “I’ve been having these awful headaches for about three months, but I just blamed them on allergies you know?” she accepted his help into the chair in front of the doctor’s desk and kept on with the explanation “at first they were once a week if that. Now there’s this weird constant sharp pain, and it’s not in a normal place, you know how you usually get headaches in the back of your neck or in your forehead?” the doctor sat on the edge of her desk and nodded, motioning for Megan to continue. “Well this pain is like a headband, kinda ear to ear, but very sharp like someone’s stabbing me with a knife. And then there’s the shaking and balance stuff. But that all started when the headaches got worse.” _

_ Megan sighed, visibly winded from the conversation, the shaking was dying off, but so was all of the color in her cheeks, she looked about five seconds to passing out. Dr.cook stood and motioned him over to the door where they could talk privately but still see her to make sure things didn’t get worse. He liked Dr.cook, she was one of the only people on his mom’s care team who realized that he was her main caregiver, and that if she made it till he was eighteen, he’d also be the one to decide when to pull the plug. _

_ The doctor took out her pen and wrote something on her wrist, she was almost always noting things down without remembering a notepad, another reason he liked her. She shook her head and then asked, “All of this happened this morning?” _

_ He nodded, “Like she said, the headaches have been going on for a while, but then about a week ago, she started getting so dizzy that her boss would send her home by noon, the shaking started around the same time as the dizziness, but it’s always only the right side.” _

_ He forced himself to make eye contact for a moment, he didn’t usually have to mask around Dr.Brook but he was trying to convey how seriously worried he was. “If I didn’t know better I’d say it was a stroke, but it’s not permanent like my Gramma’s was, until today. She just had her scans, that’s why we’re here. We had a radiology appointment.” _

_ They walked back over to the desk as she replied, “and let me guess, anna was getting on you for the wheelchair or something equally ridiculous.” _

_ He nodded and looked over at his mom who was getting more and more out of it, listing to her right and staring off into space. The doctor pulled up some files on her computer and stood, motioning for them to wait there before running down the hall to the radiologist’s office. Around thirty seconds after she left two nurses came in and helped his mom back into the wheelchair, leading them back into the outpatient infusion room and then transferring her into an infusion chair. _

_ That woke her up, she got combative and resisted the iv because she didn’t know what they were giving her and last time the nurse working with her had accidentally given her the wrong medications, causing her to have to be admitted while they flushed her system. “What are you doing! What’s going on?!” _

_ The nurses were grappling with her trying to keep her from falling on the floor in all of her strugglings, she was having a hard time controlling her motor skills even without struggling against the nurses so it was quite the ordeal. Patton rushed over and blocked access to her Port-a Cath, _

_ “Mom! Mom, calm down I’ll make sure that they don’t give you anything until Dr.brook gets back. Please sit down, it’ll be okay, but if you keep flailing everyone will end up on the floor.” _

_ His mom sat down and grabbed ahold of the arm he was using to keep the nurses from accessing her port. He squeaked, ow that hurt. _

_ “Mom, can you let go of my arm, I promise I’ll keep them from giving you anything, but you’re hurting me.” _

_ She let go of his arm and traded for hiding behind it, greeting Dr. brook with quite the picture. A 44-year-old woman who looked like she was about to pass out hiding behind her scrawny very unintimidating 14-year-old son who was dressed in a pawprint covered baby blue sweater and two sizes too big jeggings, with a very overwhelmed look on his face as he was ‘protecting’ her from two 20 something nurses with a bag of saline and a bag of steroids.  _

_ When Patton noticed the Doctor standing in the doorway he breathed a sigh of relief, finally someone who could talk some sense into his mom and figure out what the hell was going on. He stepped back and very obviously exaggerated his reaction to dr.brooks so that everyone would be distracted by how weird he was and not just go back to what had happened before he intervened, _

_ “Dr.Brooks! You’re back, thank god. We were just wondering if you would please tell us what’s gonna be in the IV because we had such a scare last time.”  _

_ His distraction technique worked and his mom immediately turned her attention away from the nurses who had paused to see how the doctor would solve the stalemate and toward Dr.brook who’d stepped into the room and grabbed the little wheeled stool from against the wall. _

_ “Yes, I would like to make sure everyone knows what’s what before I let either of you two bimbos near me.” his mom shot the nurses a glare while he mouthed ‘i’m sorry’ _

_ Dr. brook just laughed it off, correctly attributing the outburst to whatever was going on combined with the negative past experience, although she seemed nervous, like someone who’s about to ask for something that the other person won’t want to do, _

_ “Oh that’s alright, I’m sure I would feel very much the same if I was in your situation. It’s just some saline and steroids, nothing harmful. We wouldn’t want a repeat of that mistake.” _

_ Patton frowned, the saline was routine but steroids meant whatever Dr. brook had talked to the radiologist about was not good, but for now he just had to get his mom to cooperate so that they could move the process along and actually get to hear what was on the scans, _

_ “See mom, nothing bad, and Dr. brook knows what she’s talking about so I’m sure that it’ll be okay if they put the line in while she’s here.” _

_ His mom gave in and sat back to let the nurses, who looked surprised at how quickly the situation had shifted, get to work accessing her port and setting up the drip. Dr.brook wheeled over on the stool and took out a copy of the MRI from the envelope under her arm, _

_ “So I put a rush order on your scans”  _

_ she uncapped a marker and scribbled on the film as she talked  _

_ “and if you’ll look over by the cerebellum on the left side of the brain, you’ll see this white lump squishing everything over to the right of where it’s supposed to be, that’s what’s causing your symptoms and we need to get you on those steroids right away to see if we can get the swelling down, because as it stands you’re very close to having a seizure from a lack of spinal fluid getting through.” _

_ Megan cut the doctor’s detached too-cheery explanation off by bursting into tears, “Oh god. Oh god, it’s in my brain now!?” _

_ Dr. Brook looked over at Patton for some assistance in calming his mother down and found him sitting with his arms crossed painfully tight, biting his lip while tears ran down his face, although, unlike his mom he wasn’t scared, he was angry. Angry at the doctor for how nonchalantly she just told them that his mom had  _ _ brain cancer _ _ , angry at God for putting he and his family through yet another crisis, angry at the fact that now he was going to have to push his feelings down even more and become the stable one as she went through another treatment, another surgery, another grieving process for the life she might have had before the cancer. Angry at himself for not being stronger. Just point-blank angry. _

_ He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, getting into what he called ‘crisis mode’ and stuffing all of his feelings, negative or not, so far down it would take him months to find them again. When he opened his eyes, his face had smoothed out and he was no longer crying, he looked detached like he could do or see anything and be fine. In a monotone voice, he asked, “what’s next?” _

_ Dr. brook looked at him concerned, “Well now we have to get you two to a better-equipped hospital so that they can do emergency brain surgery, but first you need to go get cleaned up,” she pointed at his lip, “you’re bleeding.” _

_ He felt at his bottom lip and looked down to see that he’d bitten down so hard he’d broken the skin, “hmmm, Okay, I’m going to call my aunt and little brother so that they both know what’s going on. I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes. Then we can get going.”  _

  
  


_ Without waiting to see their responses he got up and walked toward the single-stall bathroom to go sit and reorganize his thoughts, seeing as now he was apparently going to have to go with his mom several hours away to a hospital without his brother, and without knowing how they were getting there. He hoped they were able to use an ambulance, he hated being around helicopters he could only imagine how much he’d hate being in one. Sure, maybe it was a little selfish, but he needed a minute, even when repressing his feelings to this extent, he could still get overwhelmed, and brain surgery was something new so he didn’t know what to expect. He hadn’t lied about what he was doing, he was just going to take as much time out of those fifteen minutes to stare at nothing sitting on the floor as he possibly could. And then he would get up, call his aunt, and work it out. After all, he’d been through worse...Right? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot has happened in a week, my life is chaotic. I have to get the next week's chapter done but I'm hoping that a week will be enough time, seeing as I'm a quarter through it. I've been trying to be more social, hence putting my tumblr url everywhere, and I made a new friend!! Hi friend! they're really cool, and it makes it so much easier to write when i can talk to someone who likes it, comments give me life.
> 
> https://birds-are-my-jam-fam.tumblr.com/
> 
> I'm excited because we're getting really close to when the story gets interesting, and i feel like it can't come soon enough.  
Fingers crossed that i get the next chapter done in time so i can see y'all next week!


	12. If the human race can agree on one thing, it's the hatred of ice breaker games.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dreaded orientation assembly ensues, complete with anxiety and hostility.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter holds the gold medal for chapters that I have a special place in my heart for in terms of hatred I spent 14 days trying to get this damn thing out of my head and it didn't want to do what it was supposed to do so you know what screw you universe I finally got it done.
> 
> Caution cat is here to tell you the Chapter warnings 🐈:  
Food mention, anxiety, medication mention, past injury, sensory overload.

September 2019 orientation day-

After waiting in line for a good fifteen minutes Patton got up to the little folding table, had his name checked off on an intimidatingly long list, and shuffled through the entrance of the stadium with a herd of his peers. The seating in the stadium was split by last names as well, but there were far more seats than people, so he didn’t have to sit next to anyone. This was great because his anxiety was running high and it was harder to keep up the happy-go-luckiness when he was shaking. 

He picked a seat as far away from people as he could without actually looking like he wanted to be left alone and sat down shoving his backpack under the chair and started to work on his breathing. 

In, rifle through the bag. Out, grab the pills. 

He grabbed his anxiety meds and the midday dose of his heart meds and used the last of the apple juice that he’d shoved in his bag after breakfast to swallow them. Just in time too, as he looked up to find Virgil climbing through the seats toward him looking just as anxious as he was a moment ago, with a yellow stripe across the bottom of his name tag.

“Hey mind if I sit with you?, I’m not a crowds type of guy.”

Internally Patton sighed, externally he said,

“Sure Kiddo! It’s always nice to have a familiar face.”

Virgil sat and was about to respond when there was a sudden blast of microphone feedback causing both of them to jump and instantly giving Patton a headache, a great start to whatever this was. They turned to look at the football field and just as the voice of a man, who’s cheeriness was obviously forced said,

“Hey newbies! I’m Justin And this is Allie, and we’re your welcoming committee!”

Two people wearing tee shirts with the school’s mascot on them over the word moral were standing on the field with three buckets in between them, probably for the icebreaker games further along in the assembly. The lady, Allie, stepped forward and tripped over her own feet, recovering impressively with a surprisingly genuine smile on her face,

“We’re here for you if you have any questions, Speaking of let’s start this party off with a little Q and A!”

There was an awkward silence before someone said, “How long until I can leave?”

Which was met with a wave of laughter from the crowd and a slightly hurt expression from Allie before she said,

“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way. But I promise I’ll do my level best to change that!”

She rounded back toward Justin and looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to say something. He rolled his eyes, obviously in agreement with what the guy in the crowd had said. Allie just shrugged and turned to rifle through one of the buckets and grabbing a packet of brightly colored papers before continuing along, smile back in place,

“Well, if nobody has any questions, let’s get this show on the road! I’m here to make sure you know about all of the wonderful resources on campus, so you can be a happy bean and follow all your dreams!”

Virgil snorted, leaning over to whisper,

“Well, she’s definitely made for this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so genuinely excited to be in front of a crowd of a thousand exasperated strangers.”

Patton giggled before shushing him and leaning over to pull a small notebook and pen out of his backpack and writing, ‘I think it’s nice to have at least one person enjoying themselves’ before passing it to Virgil and turning most of his attention back to the assembly.

While they had been distracted Allie had gotten through ninety percent of the list and was currently rattling off the phone numbers of the guidance counselors. He hoped that she passed out flyers with the info on it because he was never going to remember all of this, and he couldn’t get his brain to function right to take notes. He used to use a voice recorder during his very limited highschool career to record the teacher so he could listen to it instead of having to try to take notes. He and Virgil must’ve been having the same thought because just as he was thinking that he should use his phone to record Virgil passed him back the notebook with a little frowny face and a note reading,

‘I’ll never remember this.’

to which he responded, ‘I’m gonna use my phone to record it, in case they don’t pass out the info later.’

However, when Patton turned back, he found that he’d managed to miss all of the information and that Justin and Allie were busy digging around in the buckets presumably setting up for the dreaded icebreaker games. In an effort to be a cooperative member of society, he was going to attempt to participate in as many of them as he could, although he wasn’t going to push himself over his limits for some silly games. There was no way he was going to compromise his mental health to learn the names of strangers he most likely would never speak to again. 

The morale leaders had set up two circles of cones, a line of plastic squares, and were currently holding a large amount of neon green bandanas. Having finished their set up they turned back to the crowd with Allie once again taking over the presentation, 

“Okay, with all of that boring jazz outta the way, let’s have some fun! If everyone with last names starting with the letters A-L could come and stand in a line behind Justin here, and everyone else come to stand behind me, we can start!” 

With a collective air of ‘if this wasn’t mandatory, I wouldn’t be here.’ The crowd of freshmen started shuffling slowly into two moderately organized lines. As Patton stood and followed Virgil down toward the field, he took a deep breath and decided to just try to enjoy whatever he could, or as Remy would put it, he went into ‘fuck it’ mode, resolving not to put much, if any stock into anything that happened from now until he was back in the safety of his dorm room.

Once everyone had gotten situated, The two volunteers walked down to the halfway point of each line and Justin spoke up for the first time in quite a while,

“everyone to my left please switch places with the people in the other line, and then follow us over to one of the two cone circles.”

The lines shifted and as they were walking toward the circle, Patton swore he saw the Target cashier from the other day. It would make sense, he had been around the same age and the town was small enough that at least seventy percent of the young adults were from the college. The circles settled and he found himself standing across from none other than Target Guy, who looked much different out of his uniform wearing a color-coordinated outfit that happened to feature the same bright red. what was his name again? R something… Roman! That was it. He was dragged out of his reminiscing by Justin walking into the center of the circle to explain how to play the game,

“Okay. the point of this game is to find people who like the same things.” He started awkwardly pacing the circle, “So, we stand in a circle around one person, and the person says their name, and something they like and then if you like the same thing, you change places in the circle with someone else and then, if ya do it right, there’ll be a new person in the middle.” he paused in the middle of the circle “and then we repeat until everyone’s gone at least once, or a giant meteor ends our suffering…”

Almost everyone in the circle laughed at that, which made Justin seem a little more confident as he said, 

“My turn I guess. My name is Justin, And I like the color blue.”

Predictably, almost everyone in the circle switched places, including Patton. This game was the kind of thing that he could handle. Sure there was a lot of movement, and it was guaranteed that he’d get bumped into. But he could rely on conversation scripts for the entire thing, queuing up his responses ahead of time so that he could focus on moving around without hitting people. Much less overwhelming than he was expecting. Not that it wasn’t a stressful experience, He would much rather focus on a small group of two or three people than at least one hundred, but there are very few people who wouldn’t feel the same way, so he wasn’t alone in the self-consciousness. 

They settled back into the circle as a young woman stood in the center. Although, he wasn’t really paying any attention to what she was saying, opting instead to look around at who he was next to and familiarize himself with the faces around him. As he looked around he noticed that he was standing across from Logan and that Virgil was about four places to his left. 

He didn’t have time to wave or otherwise grab the attention of his roommates because the circle had started moving again. In all of the hustle and bustle, he got jostled and reacted instinctively by moving himself as far away from the touch as possible, which just so happened to be the middle of the circle. There was a moment of silence as he made his way back to the present and looked up to find himself being stared at by a large number of his peers who’s body language ranged from mildly bored to touch me and I’ll kill you. Usually, being thrown into this type of situation would cause instant dissociation and lots of ‘smile and fade into the wallpaper’ however, because this wasn’t a surprise he managed to look convincingly confident and borderline robotically say,

“My name is Patton, and I like puns!”

Before b-lining it back to the other side of the circle as a much smaller amount of students than before traded places. The game went on for a few turns and eventually, Logan ended up in the middle of the circle. 

You didn’t need to know anything about what the orange stripe on his nametag meant to see that he was slightly ‘off’ compared to how most of his peers were holding themselves, just a little too stiff, too distant. Where others had glanced around the circle or picked a few people in the circle to look at, Logan kept his eyes firmly fixed on the goalposts in the distance, drumming his fingers against his leg as he spat out the prompt like he was a particularly angry teacher speaking to a student about their grades,

“My name is Logan. I enjoy poetry.”

The mass of people shifted again and Logan’s awkwardness was instantly forgotten, being overshadowed by the concentration required to maneuver through the group without ending up in the middle of running into someone. Fifteen minutes later most of the students had gone and Justin had started making the circle reshuffle whenever there was a repeat person in the center, wearing on the already thin patience of the students and causing an air of tension that was dangerously close to overwhelming Patton’s anxiety meds. Looking around the circle he could see that both of his roommates were most likely feeling the same level of hostility. Virgil looked like he was about to full-on deck someone if they did so much as sneeze near him, which was honestly quite intimidating. If Patton hadn’t seen him stuff fries into his mouth like he was at a professional eating contest, he would have believed that Virgil was just an aggressive person all around. 

Where Virgil had chosen Fight, Logan had chosen Freeze. Standing so still as they were waiting for the next shuffle that it seemed like you could poke him and he’d shatter. The person in the center finished what they were saying and everyone moved again, and Patton managed to wiggle his way through the crowd to stand next to Logan, using the cover of chaos to say,

“Hey kiddo, you know that we can tap outright? Or at the very least we don’t have to move. We’ve already gone, now we can just stay put and wait it out.”

Logan looked at him like he’d just said that he had brought a lion back to their dorm room. as if the thought of disobeying the rules or admitting defeat was completely crazy. There was a moment where Patton thought that Logan was just gonna stare at him before he replied,

“Patton, you understand that this assembly is mandatory, and refusing to participate would result in some sort of disciplinary action against us.”

Patton nodded and shifted his weight, only partially listening to what was going on outside of their conversation, subconsciously splitting his attention just enough to be aware of when people were going to move. “Yeah, but the game’s almost over, and do ya really think Justin would care either way?”

The conversation was temporarily interrupted as the circle started moving and Logan along with it. Patton did his best to follow him, distractedly continuing the conversation as they walked,

“Well, either way, I’m gonna tap out if it goes on any longer than four turns.”

Just as they were reaching the other side of the circle another student tripped and fell full force into logan, which in turn knocked him into Patton causing them both to slip on the astroturf and land in a pile. Patton ended up squished between logan and the other student, after closing his eyes for a few seconds to adjust to suddenly being on the ground and breathing through the pain of being whacked into he opened them to see a pair of red converse with one of the laces untied, he looked up to see the owner of the shoes was none other than mister target guy reaching out a hand to help him up, 

“Sorry there friendo, it seems that one of my laces came undone, I hope you aren’t hurt.”

he accepted the help and started brushing himself off, but before he could reply, a familiar and obviously stressed voice spoke up,

“Dude what the hell?!” 

Patton looked over to see that Virgil had walked over from his place in the center of the circle to help Logan up and was now taking out his nervous energy on the poor guy who’d tripped them. Ever the peacekeeper, Patton stepped between them before things could get anywhere past verbal,

“Now, Virgil I’m sure that Roman didn’t mean to trip us, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to trip yourself too.”

There was a pause in the grumpy standoff as Roman looked at him confused, 

“How do you know my name? I haven’t had a chance to tell anyone yet. And how do you know Gloomy Gus’ name, for that matter?”

Patton laughed a little, happy to have a moment of reprieve from the tension, 

“Oh, I totally forgot! We met briefly this weekend, you were the cashier when my friend and i went shopping. you asked about her nephew and she asked how you stay so cheery when you work in retail, remember? And Virgil is my roommate, so is Logan actually."

There was a moment of silence before roman seemed to remember their, his face changing from blank confusion to something resembling a mixture of surprise and recollection, “Ah yes, i remember, well, nice to actually meet you then, your name was…. Pat..patton?”

Patton nodded and they shook hands and just as Justin started walking over to break up the mildly hostile and rather confused little quartet, Virgil managed to sneak in the last word, “Oh, so you can remember his name, but not how to walk, cool.”

But before anyone could either retaliate or scold him for being rude, the group noticed the volunteer approaching and that the circles had gone back to the two lines while they had all been focused on regrouping and, at least on Patton’s part, de-escalating the little kerfuffle. As they turned their attention away from themselves, Patton noticed that tripping had made Logan seem even more overwhelmed, he would bet money that Logan was on the brink of sensory overload, They began wandering toward the lines meeting Justin halfway.

the moral leader motioned toward the rest of the students saying, 

“Since y’all seem to be alright, please go join the others.

Before the interaction could move forward, Patton decided that now was his time to tap out and that he was going to take a chance and bring Logan with him. He stepped over toward Justin and grabbed his name tag trying to be obvious about in hopes that logan would catch on and not need him to explicitly involve him, “Hey, um, I don’t mean to be a bother, but I would like to take a break” 

Thankfully, Logan seemed to both understand the hint and know his limits, which Patton hadn’t been expecting. Logan pulled his nametag off as well and held it out without saying anything. Justin, surprisingly, seemed to have actually paid attention during the disability part of his training, because he took one look at the tags and nodded pointing toward the stands before herding a confused Roman and a disgruntled Virgil over to where Allie was enthusiastically passing out the bandanas.

As they made their way toward the stands Patton glanced over to where Logan was focused on the ground as he repeatedly straightened the tie that added to his ‘off’ demeanor, Patton couldn’t judge anyone on clothing, owning ten identical pairs of pants himself, so he didn’t think it was weird. He understood having something specific that provided routine making it easier to deal with the unpredictability of life. 

They came up the seats and Logan sat on the bottom of the steps leading up to the actual stands. He looked at Patton for a moment and said, “Thank you.” before going back to watching the ground and messing with his tie.

Patton shrugged and started up the stairs toward his backpack, hoping that it was still forcibly jammed as far as possible underneath the chair, “No problem, I’ll be right back.”

Logan didn’t seem to hear him, which was okay. It wasn’t like he’d been trying to hold a meaningful conversation and had been ignored. As he walked toward his chair he was very relieved to find his bag still wedged between the seats. he worked to dislodge it from the ‘anti-theft crevice’ while he thought about all of the things that had happened in the last… however long that stupid game had taken. Now that he was out of the circle and knew both that his bag and his important papers were still there, and that he didn’t have to participate anymore, he felt much better. The whole thing had been more chaotic than he preferred, but it wasn’t too bad. The worst part had definitely been being squished, but he was proud that not only had participated in an entire game with a large number of people, but he had maintained his composure and advocated for both himself and Logan.

Speaking of logan, he was very relieved to not have offended him by trying to be supportive. He knew from experience that it could be very annoying when people barged in thinking they knew how to help or assumed that you needed help. Now he just had to keep his lucky streak going and not mess up or be overbearing when he went back. It could be wishful thinking, but it seemed to him like they were successfully getting over the awkward communication barrier that had been between them. 

Having sorted through most of his thoughts and feeling much better he put his backpack on and made his way down the stairs. He hated stairs, ever since he had fallen in high school, he had both suffered from chronic back pain, and become much less confident of his ability to traverse them. He successfully got down the stairs and sat down on the step next to Logan, much to his backs displeasure. Setting his backpack in front of him he grabbed a water bottle, some ibuprofen and a few caramels that he’d come to carry in pretty much any bag to give to his mom if her blood sugar got too low, they also happened to be a pretty good bet to be accepted by people as gifts. He held the caramels out to Logan, seemingly startling him out of whatever he had been focusing on. 

Whoops, he hadn’t meant to scare him, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to know if you’d like some candy?”

Logan sighed and took the caramels, fiddling with the wrappers as he said. “Thank you. You have been quite kind to me, despite us only truly starting to interact today. I apologize if I came off as rude before.”

Patton took the pills and drank some of the water before responding, “You’re welcome for the candy, but you don’t have to thank me for being kind. You didn’t do anything to warrant any hostility. Just because you have different social skills than me, doesn’t mean you’re rude.”

Logan seemed surprised to hear something that objective comes out of Patton’s mouth, as he unwrapped the candy, “well said. It seems that we may get along better than I originally thought. Which is fortunate seeing as we have to share a very small space.” He gestured to the water bottle in Patton’s hand, “Were you hurt when we fell?”

Patton shook his head and pulled out his phone scrolling through his photos until he came to a picture of him in the hospital from back when he first hurt his back, “Nothing new.” he passed his phone to logan before continuing, “I fell down some stairs in high school, I coulda been a lot worse off if I hadn’t landed on top of Marina, that’s how we met.”

Logan handed back his phone with the closest to an amused look on his face that he’d seen, “going by my brief interaction with her, that does seem like a fitting way for her to make friends.” he finally ate the candy and looked at his watch waiting until his mouth was empty before saying, “thankfully there’s only half an hour left until we can leave, I for one am looking forward to getting back to my reading.”

Pulling out a fidget cube from his backpack Patton began fiddling with it as he asked, “what are you reading? I read a lot, who knows I might have read it.” 

He hadn’t expected that simple sentence to trigger an in-depth review of an obscure book of poetry, but he wasn’t complaining. He listened, chiming in where necessary to show that he was still interested, a fact that seemed to reassure Logan that he wasn’t being ignored and thus encouraging him to continue info-dumping about his favorite books. Thirty minutes felt like three and they were both surprised to find that it was already time for the assembly to end as people started toward the seats to grab their things, as they stood logan adjusted his glasses and said rather awkwardly, “Thank you again for the candy, and for the conversation. It was quite nice to speak to someone who enjoys reading as much as I do.” 

Patton put his backpack on and stuck his phone in his pocket still fidgeting with the cube in an effort to appear less nervous than he was, “You’re welcome! I enjoyed listening to you, I’m definitely gonna check out those books on space, I’m going to stop by the cafeteria on the way back… I guess I’ll see you back at the dorm?”

They started shuffling toward the exit as Logan nodded, “I hope you have an enjoyable walk. I look forward to talking more in the future.”

They parted ways and began the walk home, and even though they took different paths they shared a common thought, the gist of which was “I like him… I hope he likes me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank you all for your support and kind comments, they really help me out. 
> 
> Also hi friend! I know you're reading this >:3
> 
> This week has been better than the last one, which is good. I am very excited to write the next chapter!! And, we're outta the set up chapters for the present, so now the fun begins. Lastly, I just have to say that I love my adorable glasses gays.


	13. Ight, I'mma head out. Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patton has been alive for almost 15 years, It's about time he got fed up with this Bullshit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooookay, so. I've been looking forward to this chapter for a looong time, and it was originally going to be one full thing. but it's super frickfracking long, so I was either gonna delay again, or, I could write half of it, post it, and then post the other half as soon as I got it written. The two problems with that idea were A. it would break the pattern. and B. it would fuck up my schedule. but as I was watching my anxiety run around in circles like a chicken with its head cut off, logic made an appearance with the counterarguments A. it's your story, you could technically just post a chapter with nothing but the word prestidigitation in it and no one could do anything but be a jerk, and breaking pattern most likely only matters to you. and B. you can't mess up a schedule that doesn't exist. so, logic beat anxiety and now you get this weird update schedule change thingy.
> 
> Oh! what's this? Caution Cat is back again with more warnings!  
🐈 CHAPTER WARNINGS 🐈  
Cancer, surgery, food, food mention, anorexia, doctors, hospitals, running away mention, suicide mention, homicide mention, past child abuse, ableism, neglect, death mention, yelling.

_September 2014-_

_The bathroom was cool and quiet, a welcome reprieve from the chaos going on in his mom’s infusion room, as the nurses bustled about getting things ready to transport them three hours away from home. Patton was stressed beyond belief, not a new occurrence, but still. It was always the worst when it was a new type of disaster, he could predict the path of many kinds of crisis, he’d gone through them enough times. with his mom it was: Diagnosis, panic, treatment, neglect, depression, normalize. His father: say or do something father didn’t like, yelling, throwing, special time, mom treats the bruises, add a new nightmare to the list, normalize._

_But never before had brain surgery been involved, brain surgery brought so many new variables to the table, personality changes, losing the ability to use one or more sense, angry outbursts. All things that were a very real possibility, he had learned that from grandfather._

_He tried to focus on the present instead, all of these racing thoughts wouldn’t help, and where hed had many years to learn how to effectively shut off his emotions to push through a situation, he’d had a lot less practice shutting down his thoughts. This would be the first time he would have an active part in the decisions that went into the crisis, he was fourteen now, and gramma was dead, so it would be him and his aunt navigating their way through the chaos, flying by the seat of their pants. So as he sat on the bathroom floor, his fifteen minutes ticking scarily fast toward being over. he tried to just breathe, just allow himself to be for a moment before his corner of the world was put on fast forward for an undetermined length of time while everyone else stayed steady._

_Breathe, hear the click of his glasses as he put them on the floor, feel the cool tiles against his back, smell the hospital grade cleaners, hear the buzzing fluorescent lights. Hear as the soles of his shoes shuffled against the tile and feel the tears dislodge from his face when he stood up. Hear the dialing sounds as he called his aunt, feel his phone against his face._

_Ring...ring...ring..r..click “Hey bug, what’s up, Do I need to buy a plane ticket?”_

_His aunt sounded concerned, which wasn’t surprising since he never called unless it was some type of emergency and she was needed in person. Any other time he needed or wanted to talk to her it was over skype or text. She was probably already booking a flight as she asked._

_He sighed, “Yeah, mom’s sick again.” tears ran down his face, voice shaking, despite the tone suggesting they were talking about something as mundane as grocery shopping, “it’s in her brain this time”, he gasped at the same time his aunt did, saying it out loud made it feel more real. Like once the air hit the words their meaning was set in stone. It took moment to get over that shock until his brain finally fully clicked over into crisis mode, “they say it’s a large tumor in the left side of her cerebellum and that she needs brain surgery today or its gonna cut off her spinal fluid. They’re gonna take us to SacredHeart.”_

_There was silence over the phone with the only sounds he heard was his aunt crying and clicking around on the computer to book her ticket and the pit-pat of his tears hitting the floor._

_His aunt finally spoke up again, “okay bug, I’ll be in town in seven hours, are they gonna life-flight you three?”_

_Oh. Remy. whoops, he’d gotten too wrapped up in the what-ifs that he’d forgotten that Remy hadn’t come with like normal. “Uhh, Rem’s at home. We thought they were just gonna do more tests, so we let him stay home. I was gonna call him next.”_

_There was more shuffling about on his aunts end of the phone while ran his glasses under the tap, drying them on his shirt before rinsing his face. He had just slipped them on when his aunt sighed, “okay, change of plan, you’re gonna stick with your mom. I’ll fly in, rent a car, spend the night with your brother, getting things like clothes and toothbrushes together, and then well drive to sacred heart. I’ll call Remy so you can get back to your mom. will you get dangerously sick if you miss your meds tonight?”_

_He shook his head before remembering that she couldn’t see him, “I’ll be fine, just a bit more nauseous than normal. See you tomorrow, thank you so much Manda.”_

_“Sure thing bug, make sure you at least drink something, Love you”._

_She hung up and he sighed, his fifteen minutes were up. Now it was time to go pretend that he was ok and that he knew what he was doing, even though he was well versed in that, it didn’t mean it was fun. oh well, nothing he could do but keep going_

_A week and a half later-_

_Despite the anxiety and fear of surgery his entire family had adopted after his grandmother passed, the brain surgery had gone extremely well. The entire tumor had been removed with clean margins, leaving a much smaller chance for recurrence, at least in that spot. All was healing well, physically at least. When his mom had asked to have no visitors after she woke up, he was able to believe her excuse that she couldn’t stop vomiting, because she did have a history of severe nausea right after surgery. But the second time she’d said that she didn’t want to see them he knew something was up. Normally as soon as she could speak shed ask for her kids and keep asking until she was blue in the face or they had arrived._

_When his brother and their aunt had arrived the doctor had told them to go get some sleep and said she’d be kept under sedation for about 48 hours after the 7-hour surgery. And then when they’d come back he had pulled all of them aside into a very similar room to the one where they’d been told his grandma was brain dead, so following that train of thought he’d had a panic attack thinking that they were going to be given the same news. After he had calmed down, it turns out the doctor had just wanted to warn them of the possible personality and physical changes that would be possible with this type of surgery._

_Once they went in to talk to her it was obvious why they’d preemptively told them about deficits. Overall she was fine, her right side was a bit weak and she was having trouble with matching words to objects, getting spoon mixed up with fork, and other little things like that. But the one thing that they all noticed was how much different she was acting than normal as far as personality. The disorientation and confusion made sense for any kind of surgery, but she was acting distinctly not herself, the first clue being how she was against seeing them._

_The ‘not-mom’ ness had continued throughout the rest of her stay in the hospital and on into the car ride home. she was short-tempered and rude with everyone, getting overly angry over small things. Not remembering or not seeming to care about things like Remy’s hearing issues, or aunt manda’s OCD. They’d been listening to the same radio station for the last two hours, despite the road trip rule that they’d cycle to what someone else liked every hour so everyone could hear what they liked at least once, and Remy’s repeated annoyed protests._

_On Remy’s last “come-ooooooooon mom!” she had turned around to look at them as she said, “why does it matter what’s on the radio Ryan? you’re too deaf to hear it anyway! Stop being a disrespectful brat!”_

_That had shut everyone up, the only time their mom ever called Remy by the name on his birth certificate was when she checked him into the doctor, she had never actually called him by his name after they’d gotten free of father forcing her to, even when she was angry. The last half hour of the trip was silent save for the rock music that had caused the upset._

_When they arrived back home and helped her on the couch she had apparently forgotten all about it and was confused about why everyone was hesitant around her. As much as Patton wanted to believe her, he had also been trained to believe parents were always ready to snap up any opportunity to hurt you. So he just pretended he believed her and tried not to take it personally. after all, Remy had been annoying...shed probably get better in like a week or so, and they could move and be moderately happy again._

_About a week or so later-_

_Patton was jolted awake from his nap by his mom yelling, it took him a minute to come back to the present, and then go check on what his mom had said, although checking really just consisted of yelling “what?!” and then waiting the two minutes for her to process what hed said. so he yelled and waited to only to get a response of,_

_“ Turn those damn cartoons off!!!”_

_He tried not to laugh as he yelled back, “there are no cartoons ma, it’s the neighbors fixing their deck”_

_The reason that he didn't go check on her in person unless she was in actual danger, was because over the last week she had become very verbally combative. Most of the fights were because she disagreed that they needed to apply for home health care instead of him and the people from church taking care of her and the house. They would end up screaming for hours, to the point that Patton's throat was sore and his the muscles in his stomach cramped because of the physical effort he expended._

_He didn't want to yell, he hated it. But she yelled and yelled, and he was very unstable from the wrong medication and the stress of taking care of his mother. the unpredictability of strict religious strangers who hated him for having health conditions that couldn’t be prayed away, and repeatedly told him that if he was a better child, his mom wouldn't have cancer. A person in these situations couldn't hold out long before ending up snapping and fighting back._

_He had been Calling his aunt every day, begging for her to do something. She had left the day after they got home from the hospital because his uncle had to take an unexpected business trip and they couldn’t leave his cousins alone at home._

_The days were stressful but routine. Wake up, help mom use the bathroom, and clean her surgical site. Make breakfast, get yelled at for messing something up, help the people from church do things around the house or write up a grocery list while ignoring the various cruel things they would say. Make lunch, get yelled at._

_It was around this time in the day that he’d start reaching his limit, and then he’d usually go take a nap to put off the inevitable fight that would come around dinner. Then he’d get up and make dinner. Remy had retreated to his room most of the time, and Patton couldn’t blame him. If he had the choice he would too._

_He got out of bed to go ask Remy if he wanted spaghetti for dinner, he didn’t really care what they had. Usually, hed eat random non-nutritious snacks while cooking. He had pretty much given up on sitting down to eat, seeing as there was always something to do._

_Walking up to Remy’s door, he could hear the sound of some obnoxious youtube personality playing loud enough that would overwhelm someone with regular hearing._

_He banged on the door, hoping to be heard over the noise, “Hey rem, can you turn it down so I can talk to you?”_

_The noise stopped and about two seconds later Remy opened the door, “what’s up babes?”_

_Patton yawned before replying, “how bout spaghetti for dinner?”_

_Remy shrugged, “eh, foods food. You and mom seem to be having a good day”_

_That was true, they had been having a good day, it probably had something to do with the fact that no one had come over today, and that he was in a slightly better mood because tomorrow was his appointment with dr. Peters and he was not leaving until something changed. He turned toward the kitchen,_

_“Yeah, now we just have to see how I screw up dinner. Thanks for being so easy going.”_

_Remy stuck his tongue out, before smirking, “Whatever, you can repay me in garlic bread.”_

_He closed his door and the noise started up again, Patton rolled his eyes and headed to the kitchen. He was glad that at least Remy didn’t hate him. As he was passing the living room the dogs perked up, following him into the kitchen hoping for a snack. It had become a ritual over the past week, the dogs would keep him company and hed turn the stove fan on high for as long as he could stand so that his mom couldn’t hear and talk about his day to the dogs while he bustled about._

_He grabbed a pack of cheese sticks and a Powerade for his dinner, pulling one open and ripping it in half, “Hey puppers, how are you doing today?”_

_he tossed them the cheese pieces and opened another one to munch on, continuing to talk with his mouth full as he pulled out the cooking pots, “okay, so where were we… tomorrow I’m gonna pack a bag to prove that I’ll run away if they don’t help. hopefully, that’ll convince them.”_

_He continued to ramble and shove cheese in his mouth as he cooked, the calories weren’t an issue, he was barely ingesting enough food to maintain his already small weight, so much physical activity and stress, plus only eating crappy little snacks once or twice a day. Dinner was done, now it was time to try to get his mom to eat without fighting, it was always something or another, too much peanut butter on the toast, too little cheese on the sandwich and so on. But tonight, he was determined to just shut up and take it so that he could get to his plan._

_The plan was to convince either dr. Peters or someone at his office to help him, he was prepared to say or do anything. The first line of defense was running away, hence the bag. Then if that didn’t work, threaten his own life. the last line of defense was to tell a total lie and threaten his family. He’d rather be anywhere than here, which was odd with what hed endured before. Oh well, he’d just have to see where tomorrow took him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooo temporary cliffhanger! so yeah, that was part one. it gets better (and by better I mean angstier) in part two.  
If someone could tell me how to shut my anxiety up, that'd be great. On the bright side, I got one step further in the stupidly convoluted process that is social security disability. 
> 
> ʕ⊙ᴥ⊙ʔ Gwass houses viwgiw. ʕ⊙ᴥ⊙ʔ
> 
> Anygay, I have no idea when the next part is gonna be up but I can say with almost 85% certainly that it'll at least be by next Saturday, most likely before then, but I know better than to promise that my brain will work. Have a good whatever time it is where you are, and i'll see you soooooooooon!!!!


	14. Ight, I'mma head out art 1.5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> why does nothing ever go to plan?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I have given up on planning because I obviously don't know how to. no more promises, other than the promise that I'm gonna keep writing this. this posting arrangement is to try to help the story flow, and to give the part I'm super excited about the proper space, if that makes sense
> 
> Caution Cat is here once again!  
🐈: CHAPTER WARNINGS :🐈  
Yelling, anorexia mention, food mention, throwing things, neglectful parenting, child abuse, crying, running away mention, suicide mention, child protective services, ableism, horrible mental health care provider
> 
> If I missed anything let me know.

_October 3, 2014-_

  
  


_The one good thing about the people from church hating him was that he didn’t have to keep up a conversation. The silence in the car as the woman from the church, Mary, drove him the forty-five minutes to Dr. peters’ office gave him time to prepare himself to be assertive and not back down when he asked for help. He just wanted in-home health care, he didn’t want to move out, he didn’t want a new family, or anything else ridiculous, just some help with his mom, and maybe some effective meds, but he’d settle for just home health care._

_ His aunt had told him what to ask for, but when he’d asked what to do if they said no she hadn’t had any ideas, so he came up with some. He’d play a little game of two truths one lie, the lie being that he’d ever do anything to hurt his family. The other two, however, were things he would do, although, He’d probably default to suicide, it was easier and more predictable than running away. Sometimes he wondered what his life would be like in a different universe._

_They pulled up to dr peters’ office, which happened to be in the same parking lot as the hospital, and mary unlocked the doors without turning the car off. taking the hint he got out of the car, but before he could say anything she barked out,_

_“I’ll be back right here in an hour. if you’re not here I’m leaving.” _

_He nodded and closed the door and she wasted no time in pulling out of the parking lot. He looked at the building... this, this right here was a ‘god pokes the ant farm moment.’ he could feel it, whatever happened inside that building this afternoon would shift his life, that or he was projecting his anxiety onto the situation. Standing in the parking lot wouldn’t help, either way, time to suck it up and make his case._

  
  
  
  


_Half an hour of waiting later-_

_Patton plopped down in the armchair next to dr. peters’ desk and tucked his overstuffed backpack between his ankles they sat in silence for a few very uncomfortable seconds as Dr. peters pulled Pattons file up on the computer before asking_

_“So, how have you been feeling since our last interaction?”_

_Patton did his best to keep his face neutral as he stared at his lap, fiddling with the hem of his shirt “Umm, well things were ok… and then mom got sick again. She had to have brain surgery, which went fine… but now I’m the only one taking care of her. there are a few people from church helping with groceries and stuff but we don’t really get along... they hate me.”_

_Dr peters cut the rest of his explanation off, “Do you think everyone has to like you?”_

_There was an awkward pause as Patton searched through his head for a reply that dr. Peters couldn’t twist back on him wanting attention, which was something he tended to do._

_“No. everyone has the right to their own opinion, but it’s pretty hard not to come to that conclusion when they blame me and my autism for my mom having cancer.”_

_Dr. peters typed something into the computer, “did they say that, or are you assuming that.”_

_Patton could feel himself getting frustrated, this was stupid, he had actual things to talk about. He had to get the conversation back on track, hopefully without being rude. Because being rude to a male authority figure was always accompanied by tears. And tears made it hard for people to take you seriously._

_He took a deep breath and started talking rapidly to try to get his point out without being interrupted, “They said it to my face. Anyway, what I was going to ask if is we could have home health come in to take care of my mom because she’s being really mean and I’m getting really stressed out from having to take care of everyone on my own.”_

_Dr. peters spun in his chair to face him, “why don’t you wait a few years and get emancipated.”_

_Okay, here come the tears, Patton took his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes in a futile attempt not to cry, “I don’t want to move out. I just want help.”_

_Dr peters sounded bored as he said, “you have help, the people from your church are helping.”_

_Tears started rolling down Patton’s face. Asking nicely was obviously not going to work, he leaned over to unzip his bag, showing all of the clothes and toiletries stuffed inside. If they wanted dramatic, he’d give them dramatic. He looked up tried to maintain eye contact, starting the mini-monologue that he’d practiced with his aunt and in his head all morning, “If you do not provide me with in-home health care, to take care of my abusive mother, I will run away. If you find me and send me back home without help, I will kill myself.”_

_Dr peters weren’t impressed, “what makes you say your mother’s abusive?”_

_Patton laughed, which combined with the exasperation and tears on his face made him look a little unhinged, “She screams at me, all day. Over the smallest things. One time she dumped her glass of milk on my head for not making her English muffin crisp enough.”_

_The doctor reached for the phone, “Has she ever hit you?”_

_Patton continued crying as he mostly gave up on the discussion and directed most of his attention to planning his suicide, “No.”_

_He startled as the doctor shoved the phone into his hand and got up to leave, “I am going to draw up some paperwork and tell the hospital you’re being admitted for paranoia, please speak honestly with the social worker on the phone.”_

_Patton blinked, there we go. The ant farm moment. He looked down at the phone, may as well talk to the lady, he didn’t have to tell her anything he didn’t want to, “Hello?”_

_“Hi! This is Patton right?”_

_What an odd question, who else would he be, “yeah…”_

_The woman on the phone’s demeanor changed from customer service to pity as she said, “Dr. Peters sent me your file, and it says here that your having some issues with your mom, so I’m gonna ask you some questions and I want you to tell me the truth, you don’t have to worry, no one will get mad at you for this.”_

_Jokes on her, everyone he could make mad from this was mad at him already, “Okay.”_

_“Okay sweetie, thanks for being so brave. First question, does your mom ever hit you or throw anything at you?”_

_He thought back to the time she had thrown her sandwich at him and but her aim was off so it hit the wall before immediately being scarfed up by the dog, “she throws things.”_

_“Alrighty, I have two more questions, do you have any other family you could stay with?”_

_“The only other family I’m on good terms with is my aunt and she lives in Montana.”_

_“Oh, I’m sorry about that. I’ll ask my last question so that you can get on with your day, do you have any siblings that live with you?”_

_“A younger brother.”_

_“Okie Dokie then, thank you for answering my questions, I hope things get better, have a good day!”_

_She hung up before he could say anything. That was a weird phone call to be sure, in almost all of the interactions he’d had today, he hadn’t felt like anyone was listening, or seeing him. All in all, This was not what he’d expected the result of his appointment to be. after today even Remy and his aunt would probably be mad at him._

_After sitting in the office for what felt like an eternity a nurse from the hospital across the parking lot came in and gave him the same horrible paper scrubs from as last time and had him get changed in the bathroom and give her his bag and the clothes he had taken off. She also informed him that they’d told mary that he wouldn’t be coming home and to tell his mom. They walked across the parking lot and he asked her how long he’d be in the hospital, to which she replied that she didn’t know. _

  
  
  


_Two days later-_

_Puzzles, so many puzzles. He had done five of them. The nurses were nice and seemed to realize after the first hour that he was gonna be an easy patient. The janitor kept coming past and telling him puns and the nurses provided him with unlimited access to the phone. He’d been calling his aunt and she was getting kinda cagey, which worried him. _

_He was coloring for a much-needed change of ace when he was approached by a nurse holding his bag and his clothes. _

_She handed him the clothes, “you’re in for an adventure, your mom’s boss and your brother are here to take you to the airport, so you two can go live with your aunt. Time to get dressed.”_

_What. why did nothing ever go to plan? He’d said that he didn’t want to move, and now they were completely ignoring him and uprooting not only his life but Remy’s as well. “Why? Why can’t I just get some help with my mom? I don’t want to ruin Remy’s life.”_

_The nurse sighed and set his bag against the nurses’ station, “I know hun but from the conversations I’ve had with your aunt, she seems to value mental health and have your well being in mind. Who knows, it might be temporary and actually be a good break.”_

_Patton felt bad for being rude to her, but he was so done. He’d asked for aa very rational and easy thing and had somehow gotten the government to pay for him to run away instead. But why the hell did they have to drag Remy into it? He stood and went to the bathroom to change, ignoring the nurse. _

_Once he’d changed he walked up to the nurses’ station to meet his mom’s boss, Vikky, and Remy. He tried to get his brother’s attention but Remy just glared at him before going back to playing Pokemon on his DS, effectively communicating that he was in no mood for conversation and blamed Patton for this situation._

_Vikky turned to him with an obvious air of pity, “Hey. Are you ready to go?”_

_He shrugged, “What happened to my mom?”_

_Vikky paused, clearly weighing whether telling him the truth would make things worse. She picked up his backpack and motioned to him and Remy that they were leaving before saying, “She’s still at home. She’s ok. We’ve got a flight in four hours, so you better pee now. I’ve got assorted nuts in the trunk or snacks.”_

_He didn’t like the way she glossed over what had happened with his mom but she had already moved on and was making a good pace toward the parking lot, and he was still trying to process the fact that he apparently belonged to his aunt now, which made her behavior over the phone make more sense. She’d known that he didn’t want this and not told him to keep him from putting up a fuss._

_ He wasn’t angry with her, he was frustrated but resigned. There was nothing he could do about the situation now, and if he’d learned anything in his life, it was that when everyone is upset with you, it’s a good idea to keep your head down. So he didn’t prod for more information on his mother, he just quietly got into the back of the car and looked out the window. The rest of the trip was made in silence with his one attempt at talking to his brother being met with a wordless glare._

  
  


_Seven hours later-_

  
  


_As the plane cleared out and the Remy put his DS away and said the first thing to Patton since before he’d been admitted,_

_“This is your fault, I hate you.”_

_Then he got up and walked away, not waiting for him before starting to climb down the stairs after the flight attendant that had been assigned to them to deliver them to their aunt. _

_Any other time Patton would have started crying, however, today he was on autopilot while he tried to reconcile the fact that he was over one thousand miles away from where he’d woken up, he wasn’t going home, and he didn’t know if he’d ever see his mom again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the change of seasons, Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!  
which means my mental health is going to be absolute shit, or at least try to be, until I get used to the change in the sunlight.  
which means, my updates are going to be very sporadic.  
but I have a caseworker now, which means I'm going to get on track to many many helpful things, so there is hope for me yet.
> 
> Thank y'all for stickin with me, (●'◡'●)ﾉ♥


	15. Ight, I'mma head out. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 in our little saga
> 
> everyone is on edge, which is hard for anyone, but especially for someone who has internalized 'tension means abuse.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello people, I am alive and mostly well. I'll put a bit more of an update in the endnotes, but for now, I'll hand it on over to caution cat with the chapter warnings. as always lemme know if I miss any.
> 
> 🐈: CHAPTER WARNINGS :🐈 yelling, PTSD, panic attack, food mention, suicidal thoughts, dissociation, chronic health condition, surgery mention, cancer mention, swearing, nightmare mention

_Mid-October 2014-_   
  


_Two days after the flight and Remy still hadn’t talked to him. His aunt was nice, treating things as if they’d always been there, and his cousins were okay, twin boys Jacob and will. Jacob was also autistic so they clicked pretty well, but Will and his uncle scared him._   
  
_Will yelled when he was angry, and he was angry a large amount of the time. His uncle, Dan, just stared at people when he was mad as if he could fix whatever happened with his mind. So Patton did his best to avoid being in a room alone with them. He was sleeping on the couch while Remy had an air mattress, they didn’t know how long they were staying, once that was established they’d rearrange some furniture to make it a more livable environment. _   
  
_His mom had called three times so far and each time she wouldn’t even give him time to say hi before laying into him, he’d silently listen to her yell and wait until she told him to pass the phone off to Remy before “taking a shower” which really meant sitting in the bathroom with the shower running while crying. _   
  
  
_A week later- _   
  
_Patton woke up gasping to his aunt shaking the couch._

_ she backed up, “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”_   
  
_He sat up rubbing at his eyes before putting his glasses on and blinking as things came into focus, “you didn’t, I just wake up like that.”_

_His aunt sat in the newly vacated space on the couch, “you excited for today?”_   
  


_There was a pause before it processed, “oh yeah, my birthday.”_   
  
_She looked a little concerned by his reaction but continued the conversation without asking any questions other than what he wanted his cake to be. That threw him off, for his past two birthdays there hadn’t been any fuss other than whatever cake Remy wanted and twenty dollars from his mom, he shrugged “whatever everyone wants I’m not picky.” _   
  
_She went to put an arm around his shoulder before remembering his touch aversion, leaving her to just awkwardly drop it as she said “Bug, it’s your birthday, the one day where being picky is the point. Now tell me what kind of cake you want and what you want for dinner, the rest of them can suck it.” _   
  
_He laughed, his aunt was a get to the point person, but also very bubbly until you really tried to piss her off. It was a weird feeling to have that positivity directed at him. _   
  
_He had to think for a minute about the dinner, but the cake was a no-brainer, it also happened to be Remy’s least favorite dessert on the planet, “red velvet, please. I don’t have a clue about the dinner though.”_

_She stood to let him get ready for the day, “that’s alright you have a while to think about it.”_   
  
_He nodded and got all of the stuff from his backpack for a shower, looked across the room at the bundle of blankets that was an obviously pretending to be sleeping ten year old, and sighed. _   
  
_There had been no words spoken between the two and Patton had given up after a week, they only communicated when necessary, and only in sign. Patton hadn’t heard his brother’s voice in almost two weeks. He’d completely gone nonverbal out of protest to his situation, which wasn’t really a problem seeing how their aunt was a sign language interpreter. _   
  
_But Remy’s point wasn’t to make life difficult, it was to hurt Patton. While the two had always been pretty close, they had kind of drifted apart when things started getting more intense regarding their dad, Patton just didn’t have the energy to socialize after protecting his little brother from the situation and comforting his mother. Remy’s plan was working quite well, all of the stress from the past month or so, plus the tension between the male members of the household he was currently living in was taking a toll. _   
  


_He’d already been mildly suicidal before he went to dr peters office, now he was rapidly switching from I am going to kill myself tonight, to regressing while hiding in the bathroom, to being so frustrated with the way his simple request had blown up into a multi-state nightmare that his body would just cry. He wouldn’t feel bad, he wouldn’t feel much of anything really, but he’d be doing some mundane task and tears would just start flowing down his cheeks, no sobbing, no hitching breath, just… tears. He couldn’t control it, so he’d just keep doing whatever he’d been doing and hope no one would notice._   
  


_This strategy was proving surprisingly effective, especially since he was in a pretty small house with five other people. He just had to keep up the facade, it wasn’t the worst thing he’d had to do, but it was tiring. He couldn’t remember the last time he had energy, it had gotten past the point of just being depressed, there had to be something wrong. There was no way a healthy fifteen year old should feel like they’d been awake for days after only being up for two hours. As the odd symptoms continued cropping up he was beginning to become aware of the subconscious terror of being sick that had been cultivated as he grew up with a front-row seat to severe health conditions and all of the hurdles they came with. He dealt with quite a bit of pain due to his sensory issues and from old fractures that ‘weren’t severe enough’ to warrant the risk of a trip to the hospital so that wasn’t a worrying thing as much as the severe lack of energy, dizziness, and memory problems. It was getting harder to pretend that nothing was wrong and he had done his best to distance himself from dangerous chores like cooking or ironing because there had been a few times before leaving home that he’d forgotten to turn the burner off or set a container down too close to the stovetop and almost set it on fire_   
  


_The place he had first noticed problems getting worse was in the shower, there had been several times where he had gotten so dizzy that he almost collapsed or had literally forgotten what came next and stood in the shower with that same feeling that comes when you forget what you came into a room for as he grasped at straws before finally remembering ‘oh yea, shampoo.’_   
  
_Or he’d blank out and suddenly hours had passed. That one he’d googled, it was the most concerning in his opinion, mostly because it made pretending to be okay much more difficult. He got a pretty calming answer, it was dissociation due to his PTSD and anxiety. That was something that wasn’t as scary to him as cancer or some other brain disease. It had become annoying rather than scary, this was one of those annoying times when he popped back into the present as everyone was singing happy birthday while his aunt carried a very tasty looking cake out past the already cleaned dinner dishes. _   
  
_Well, he must have figured out what he’d wanted for dinner. It was almost funny the assortment of things from his life he couldn’t remember and now fifteenth birthday dinner was added to the list, oh well that wasn’t something that he was expected to remember. He finished taking stock of his new surroundings as the last few lines of happy birthday were being sung by everyone but Remy. _   
  
_His aunt set the cake in front of him “pick a good wish!” _   
  
_Patton stared at the candles for a moment, three more years till eighteen. Only three more years and then he would meet his goal and he could stop. Rerouting his thoughts toward blowing the candles out came too late to stop the tears. He blew them all out in one breath as his internal monologue changed to “fuck fuck fuck fuck!” all of this work to be okay and now everyone was staring at him as his resolve and luck finally ran out. _   
  
_A couple of seconds of awkward silence passed as his family waited to see whether or not he would acknowledge his quickly escalating burst oof emotion. Crying in front of others, or any negative emotion with an audience always devolved into a panic attack as his PTSD screamed that he’d be hurt for not keeping a brave face. All of his concentration turned inwards as he braced for negative reactions, compounded by the fear of the unknown. He didn’t have an experience base for the reaction of his aunt’s family like he did with his own. He jerked back to being aware of his surroundings as a hand was gently placed on his arm. _   
  
_“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!” _   
  
_He opened his eyes to the teary image of his very concerned aunt knelt in front of him, her hand hovering over his arm as she fought the impulse to physically comfort him again after his initial reaction. “Shh shh its okay bug, what can we do to help?” _   
  
_Patton’s eyes darted around the room as he frantically searched for words other than sorry, his breathing still panicked and uneven. Words were hard, but only his mom had ever been understanding of his difficulty speaking when flustered. Sure his aunt was fluent in ASL but that didn’t mean she’d be okay with him being nonverbal without a ‘real’ problem. His eyes caught on someone’s hands moving, survival instincts primed and watching for any threat. His anxiety turned to confusion for a moment as he realized that Remy was signing, and must have been attempting to talk to him as his aunts back was turned, and neither his cousins nor uncle could sign much past introductions and pleasantries. _   
  
_Remy looked slightly put off as he signed the first sentence of more than two words since they’d left Oregon, •I’ll explain the anxiety if you wanna go chill alone.• _   
  
_Patton paused for a moment as he processed the offer, weighing the allure of being out of the spotlight against the fear of retaliation for running away before finally deciding to take his brother’s offer and apologize later, •Thank you. I’m sorry.• _   
  
_Remy shrugged, • I’m still mad at you, just not for this.• _   
  
_With a nod at his brother, Patton got up and squeaked out an apology before bolting for the bathroom not bothering to turn the water on before breaking down into hastily muffled sobs. Birthday’s were weird, on one hand, there was relief that he was one year closer to the end of all of this, but then came the realization that he still had years to go, or he could give up and break his promise to himself. The worst part of birthdays was that everyone else treated them like a wonderful fun thing, it’s much easier to use his twenty bucks on some music or colored pencils and pretend that there was nothing different. Sure it was kinda painful to see the fuss that others got on their birthday, and he didn’t like getting a cheesecake every year for both his and his brother’s birthdays since Remy didn’t like any other kind of cake, but there was no singing or being the center of attention and he could hide in his room and mope. But then he had to go fuck everything up. _

_His family hated him now, his brother may have bailed him out tonight but it was probably to get rid of the tension as neither of them had a very good relationship with public displays of emotion. Remy hardly showed any emotion himself and didn’t know how to handle other people’s emotions other than to leave or sass them into changing the subject._   
  
_It took about fifteen minutes for the tears to die down and the exhaustion to set in, dissociation always took energy and that on top of the adrenaline crash that would follow a panic attack had left him feeling completely drained. The only good thing about that was that he could generally face the rest of the day with apathy which meant confronting the aftermath of his meltdown was going to be more tedious and annoying than upsetting. Time to go see how bad the consequences were, hopefully, he’d just be lectured on being disrespectful but at this point, he didn’t really care if it was worse. _   
  
_As he walked down the hall toward the living room he could hear the tv playing some sort of game show in the background as his aunt talked to someone, having what seemed to be an oddly one-sided conversation. He rounded the corner to see everyone had moved out to the couch and seemed to be wrapped up in an episode of wheel of fortune as his aunt talked on the phone in the kitchen. That explained the weird nature of her discussion, although she didn’t seem to be having a pleasant call. _   
  
_His uncle was the first one to notice him as he did his best to act normal making his way over to the unoccupied armchair in the corner of the room, Patton had just sat down when his uncle walked over to him holding a small blue box with a tiny bow on it. Oh great, presents. _   
  
_Dan awkwardly shuffled the box between his hands, clearly having a hard time dealing with the leftover tension from the earlier interaction. It wouldn’t be surprising if there was some neurodivergence going on with his uncle too, Patton thought as he watched the very familiar mannerisms be reflected at him while the adult fumbled. _   
  
_Patton took pity on him, speaking up to break the silence, although that took a little throat clearing and when he did get the words out his voice still sounded a bit watery and very tired, “What’s that? You didn’t have to get me anything.” _   
  
_Dan held the box out to him, “Nonsense, it’s your birthday and you’re a good kid. I know it’s probably not something you’ll like, but every young boy should have one. We can return it if you don’t like the color.” _   
  


_Patton grabbed the box, tilting his head in surprise when he felt how heavy it was. Opening the box revealed a beautiful small turquoise and silver pocket knife, not what he’d expected at all. He gently lifted the knife out of the box turning it in the light from the tv as he realized that this must have cost quite a bit. He knew his aunt and uncle were better off than his family, but he had been too stressed to really pay attention to just how big the disparity was. _   
  
_Carefully repackaging the knife he considered what to say. He wasn’t sure what he’d use the knife for, but it was definitely a nice gift. “Thank you. It’s very pretty.” _   
  
_His uncle let out a relieved sigh, “you’re welcome, I was worried you’d think it was silly. I have no idea if you’re a pocket knife kinda guy, but it’s useful either way.” _   
  
_Patton picked the knife back up as dan went to sit back on the couch. There was no way that he would just be using such an expensive knife as if it was a standard tool. But it was shiny and smooth and satisfying to watch glint in the dim lighting. He was brought out of his thoughts by his aunts raised voice from the kitchen as she fought with whoever was on the other end of the phone._

_The tv was put on mute as everyone listened to what was going on in the kitchen, Remy, Patton, and Jacob had curled up and put their hands over their ears in a synchronized response to the loud sound. There wasn’t any way to avoid eavesdropping unless they got up and moved to the other room, thankfully Patton was too tired to have much anxiety over the yelling and managed to stay calm as he listened._   
  
_His aunt stood and began to pace the kitchen, emoting with her free hand, “Meg, Megan! You’re not listenin-” she paused as the other person barreled on, waiting for her turn to speak. _   
  
_Great, it was his mom. Unless there was another angry woman named Megan in his aunt's contacts. _   
  
_The yelling started up again “Of course I wouldn’t just leave you there! But you just had massive brain surgery, you shouldn’t be getting on a god-damn plane!” _   
  
_Remy and Patton shared a frustrated look, yep that was definitely their mom. She had a hard time being down and out after surgery and had a history of doing way too much way too soon, like the time she ripped up a whole room’s worth of carpet a week after getting a mastectomy and ended up back in the er with internal bleeding. Of course she would get a flight not even a month after getting major brain surgery. _   
  
_“Fine. Fine! We’ll pick you up, but you’re going to the hospital as soon as something goes wrong, no negotiations. Ok, see you tomorrow.” _   
  
_Everyone turned to look at the kitchen doorway as his aunt sighed in frustration and came to sit and fill everyone in. she settled on the arm of the couch next to her husband flashing a tired smile at them, “I’m sorry that got so loud. I’m glad to see you’re feeling a bit better bug, as you probably heard that was your mom.” Dan started rubbing between her shoulders when he noticed her tensing, she took her glasses off and rubbed at her face before taking a deep breath and continuing in her explanation. “She decided that she doesn’t want us to take care of you anymore and has booked a flight here for tomorrow evening, I don’t know what she thinks is going to happen, she has nowhere else to go and is still having a hard time doing things on her own. But you know how stubborn she is.” _   
  
_Dan stood and turned the tv off before pulling three packages and a small envelope out of the coat closet, “Well, that’s a problem for tomorrow. Let’s finish up pat’s birthday the right way, and then we can all get some much-needed rest.” _   
  
_In Patton’s opinion, the right way would be just going to bed without all of this fuss, but while he didn’t have the energy to be upset, he also didn’t have the energy to protest. Taking the little stack of gifts from his uncle, he resolved to attempt to focus on this moment rather than the chaos and frustration that would be coming tomorrow. There was a package from his aunt and one from each of the cousins. Remy likely tried to get out of the gift-giving and was made to get him something, explaining why his was only an envelope. Going smallest to biggest revealed an iTunes gift card from Remy, a pack of neon-colored fidget cubes and a nice pair of noise-canceling headphones from Jacob, a surprisingly large set of fine line markers from Will, and a very nice lightbox for tracing from his aunt. Quite a bit more than he felt was needed, and for once he was grateful that he was too burnt out to worry about what he’d be expected to do to repay the gifts. Nothing came for free, there were always strings. _   
  
_Everyone stood to get ready for bed as he placed the gifts next to his backpack, his cousins and brother left to go fight over which sink to use to brush teeth and Patton approached the very tired adults figuring now was a good time to apologize for freaking out. _   
  
_“Thank you for the gifts, they’re very nice. I’m really sorry for getting so upset earlier, and for this whole thing with my mom.” _   
  
_The pair on the couch looked at him with an uncomfortable amount of pity for a moment before his aunt spoke up, “You’re very welcome for the gifts, I’m glad you like them.” she stood and started gathering up the mess that comes with having four young boys cooped up in the house all day, “As for your mom… She’s always been like this. We used to fight over who was right or wrong for hours when we were kids, none of it is your fault. I know how stressful this time has been on you, none of us blame you for getting upset, right hun?” _   
  
_His uncle’s nod was cut off by a large yawn “right, I would have been concerned if you didn’t get upset at least a little bit after all of this chaos. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m old and require rest.” _   
  
_Eventually, everyone settled down and the lights were turned out. Patton was much too exhausted for his normal nightly worries and fell asleep almost instantly, that didn’t spare him from the nightmares which had aptly taken on every worst-case scenario possible regarding his mom, from plane crashes to seizures to being kicked out for causing this much upset in the household. After a few hours of tossing and turning his subconscious seemed to have worked out the remaining worry from the day and he finally slid into the pitch black of dreamless sleep._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well. I'm not dead, I had an interesting experience with that cold, which turned out to be my normal immunocompromised weirdness thank the stars. I did end up being tested for COVID, and then they gave me preemptive steroids for my lungs which I had an allergic reaction to and ended up back at the hospital. it was quite the ordeal.
> 
> and then I had a large amount of doctors appointments during the small amount of time that my town was out of quarantine, in which I got 14 blood tests and the tentative diagnosis of fibromyalgia and started the massive and very annoying process of applying for disability. which I guess answers the question from one of you lovely humans about if I have experience with ssdi, my mom is disabled so i saw her jump though the us governments stupid hoops, before having to start that myself. I currently have three phone calls to make and 24 forms to fill out.
> 
> anygay, with all of that going on I've had a harder time writing, plus my anxiety is off the charts because I live in one of the most incompetent hateful countries ever. this is the last part of this chapter which I'm contemplating assembling into one really long chapter. so the next chapter will be in the present day before we hop back into the chaos. the next chapter is going to be mostly from logans pov, which should be interesting to write. hopefully, it won't take months.
> 
> TLDR I'm alive, and in okay health. and I haven't given up on the story. thank you for all of the nice comments, I truly enjoy your interactions ~P


	16. Logan sanders has friends?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan investigates his new friendships, with mixed results and ends up with a migraine
> 
> : 🐈 CHAPTER WARNINGS 🐈 : mentions of PTSD, chronic heart condition, meds, med sharing, yelling, autism speaks mentions, aba therapy mentions, toxic parenting, trans and homophobia, maladaptive stimming mention, manipulative parent, mention of family death and hospitals, mentions of being kicked out for being queer, ablism.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all, look at this! two weeks in a row! I mean, I'm a day late, but I was just too tired once I finished the edits and stuff to write notes/warnings, and I don't think that I can post a chapter without notes without worrying about it, enjoy the chapter, lemme know if you have any triggers to add or comments
> 
> I enjoy your interactions

Early October 2019- Three weeks after orientation

Logan sanders was an odd man, Odd, stuck-up, rude, know-it-all, freak, he’d heard them all. that’s why Patton was so confusing. When they’d first met he’d brushed him off as a blithering idiot, hard not to with the fumbled introduction. But ever since that ridiculous orientation assembly he’d been attempting to see past the tiny ray of sunshine exterior to understand why it was so easy and comfortable between them so quickly, so Logan did the one thing that made the allistic world make sense, he learned all the variables he could about his bubbly roommate.   
  
He wasn’t used to having friends, acquaintances were more his style. But it would be hard to describe the relationship between them as anything but. They’d been going to breakfast together as the cafeteria was across from the building that their first classes were in. they didn’t have any classes together this semester, but all of the buildings related to a scientific field were grouped on the same side of campus so there wasn’t much distance either way leading to a lot of breakfasts and coffee, well, tea on Patton’s part, together. Virgil and Patton had quite a few classes together so the three would otter walk together, he and Virgil had more of the relationship he was used to, not hostile by any means but not really comfortable either. That didn’t bother him, he was just fine being alone, less of a chance to be hurt that way.   
  
That was why he had such mixed feelings about being actual friends with Patton. He kept telling himself that once he understood what drew them together he would also understand how to distance himself in order to avoid the mess of emotions that always came with any relationship deeper than surface level. The problem with that strategy was he kept finding odd bits of behavior or stumbling upon confusing possessions. Just enough of a discrepancy from the happy go lucky pun-loving young adult persona to keep his overactive need for information and categorization interested.

For example, the unusually large amount of medication that Patton took for a healthy-looking 19-year-old. Every morning and afternoon there would be two pills, and the one time he had come to ask if he could borrow a pencil he had caught a glimpse of several medicine bottles and a pill organizer on the nightstand before he had been almost chased out of the room, a half-empty pack of pencils in hand, almost like there was something worth hiding. He tried not to think anything of it, he knew how uncomfortable it could be to have someone in your private space.

Another notable outlier was the exaggerated fear response, he knew from the color-coded disability system that both of his roommates had anxiety, but Virgil didn’t act the same way, while it was true that he was jumpy, didn’t like being the center of attention, and would startle rather easy if he didn’t hear someone coming ahead of time, he didn’t flinch when someone moved quickly or gasp like he’d been burned if you happened to wake him up. A few google searches of Patton’s behaviors yielded PTSD as the most likely result, that was hard to believe given Patton’s positive attitude, however, Logan had learned from experience that asking too many, or too personal of questions was always an ill-fated endeavor and rarely ended up with a satisfying answer, so he did his best to temper his curiosity and make sure to move smoothly and let Patton sleep unless absolutely necessary.   
  
It just so happened that he was busy managing the speed of his gestures as they were walking back to their dorm that he got a partial answer to one of his questions. he was halfway through explaining why his physics professor was one of the most annoying sentient beings on the planet when he was startled out of his mild rant by Patton stumbling into him and then promptly sitting down on the curb with his hand on his chest. This was alarming.   
  
“Patton, are you alright?”   
  
Patton looked up and smiled, although he was a bit pale and looked out of breath “Oh, yeah. Just my heart messin’ up again, it’ll pass in a minute. Sorry for bumping into you.”   
  
Logan’s eyebrows shot up “Cardiac issues aren’t something to be so calm about, we should get you to a medical facility!”   
  
His worthwhile concern was met with a tired chuckle, “Logan, I’m fine. This is normal. Those meds I take at breakfast and lunch are for a heart condition, well one of them is for back pain, but the bright orange one is for tachycardia. this happens every now and then, we don’t need to be worried unless this goes on for more than five minutes or I pass out. That’s why I sat down, I get really dizzy during an episode.”   
  
Sighing he decided that there was no reason to stand awkwardly while waiting for this to pass, and if Patton did end up passing out there was less of a chance that he would hit his head if they were both seated where he could be caught on the way down.    
  
“How long have you had heart problems?”   
  
He watched as His roommate counted on his fingers something that should have been an easy question, of course just as he had a partial answer another question had to pop up.    
  
“Well, I’ve had problems with my heart since I was nine, but I didn’t know what it was until right before I turned eighteen, so it depends on how you classify ‘having them’. It’s calmed down now so we can keep walking”   
  
Logan nodded and stood, pausing to help Patton up before continuing their walk in silence for a few hundred feet contemplating how frustrating it was that societal convention was against him and his want for simple and straight forward questions before he was roused from his grumpy musing by his traveling companion asking for the second half of his completely justified rant.   
  
Two days later-   
  
It was late, Logan was only just getting back to dorm after staying at the library to study, as much as he did enjoy spending time with his roommates, they could get distracting and overwhelming. Especially when marina decided to come over. She had grown on everyone, and begrudgingly he had to admit that she didn’t annoy him quite as much as when they first met, but with her outgoing unorganized personality, the confusion of why Patton didn’t think he was a freak, and the addition of the extremely charismatic young man who tripped them coming along seeming purely to antagonize Virgil, it got chaotic very quickly. Plus having a routine helped him navigate the excess of social cues in campus life. So every Thursday when classes ended an hour early he would disappear until the library kicked him out. Not that he really needed to study that hard, he was about a week ahead in his syllabus seeing as this semester was full of the boring and unfortunately necessary basics. Nothing had thrown him off so far, in fact on his most recent calculus pop quiz he had misread how much information was needed in the description section and ended up getting two extra credit points for outlining two alternate methods of solving the example   
  
after closing the front door as quietly as possible and pocketing his key he turned to go to bed and caught a glimpse of Patton sleeping curled in a little ball on the couch, he sighed, If Patton’s back pain was severe enough to take medication then sleeping on the couch may very well make it impossible to function. As much as he didn’t want to disturb him and cause the shocked gasping, which startled him too, he wouldn’t be able to consider himself a good friend if he didn’t. 

Looking closer, he was surprised to see Patton’s thumb corked securely in his mouth, if he was being honest it made him smile a bit, for lack of any other words it was cute…if unsanitary. the feelings surrounding his friend were growing more and more confusing. He would love to believe that he didn’t have feelings period, but logic proved that he did and that he had a supremely difficult time parsing them out into any sort of coherent insight.    
  
This was a matter for later thought though, right now it was time to help his tiny roommate to a slightly less uncomfortable surface, bending down to attempt to look less threatening he gently shook his sleeping friend’s shoulder. That was all it took and with a great gasp of air Patton was awake, there was a moment of time where he appeared to be gathering his surroundings trying to decern whether not he was truly awake, and despite having such an exaggerated start he seemed to still be half asleep feeling around in the crack of the couch for his glasses and placing them on his face in the midst of an impressive yawn so he could see who was sitting in front of him.   
  
“Oh hi Logan, did you need something?”   
  
Logan sat in the space next to his friend that had been freed up as Patton sat up and stretched, “I assumed a night on this couch rather than in a more optimal sleeping environment would take a toll on your spine and make it difficult to function tomorrow.”   
  
Patton hummed something that partially resembled “ thanks” before clumsily standing and sluggishly wandering into his room forgetting to close the door before fully collapsing into bed.    
  
Shaking his head as he stood, Logan wondered if maybe Patton had insomnia to be that exhausted after an average day, come to think of it, he’d caught both of his roommates snoozing more often than not. as he walked toward his room he turned to close the forgotten door and glimpsed something that made him question his own energy levels. He must have been more tired than he thought to think he saw a rather large pacifier on Patton’s nightstand. Oh well, yet another question society dictated he not bring up. He closed the door and decided to go with the overtired theory.   
  
  
He grabbed his phone out of his bag to double-check that his alarms were set only to see six missed calls, there was only one person in his family that refused to migrate to text, his mother. He didn’t want to deal with her, but it was only eight and he knew that the number of calls would continue to pile up until he called back. The sanders were a stubborn family. Sitting on the bed he pressed the contact info a bit harder than necessary and leaned back preparing to go to bed with a headache as one never failed to appear when dealing with his mother.    
  
The phone hardly rang once before the aggressive voice of Agnes Sanders came through the receiver “Logan, why didn’t you pick up?! I called six times.”   
  
Logan sighed, digging around in his bag for some gum to stop him from chewing up the inside of his mouth “I saw, I just got back from the library. My phone was on silent in my bag. What did you need?”   
  
“Next time keep it on the table or in your pocket, I could have been calling about one or your siblings getting hurt, and you wouldn’t have even known.”   
  
Finally finding and frowning at the last piece of gum in the pack he made a noise to signal that he was still listening, knowing that she was just going to rant for a while not actually caring for his response.   
  
She continued outlining all of the horrible situations that he could have missed out on, “what if it had been your father and you hadn’t been able to get to the hospital before he died, think about that next time you put your phone in your bag!”   
  
Sensing that her rant had come to an end, for now, he popped the gum into his mouth “yes mother, what was it you did need?” he took his glasses off to have something to do with his hands, he knew that if he put his full attention into the conversation he’d end up with a full-blown migraine, also because his habit of fiddling with things drove his mother crazy and as petty as it was he enjoyed doing things she hated when she couldn’t stop him.   
  
Agnes made an offended noise, “do I need a reason to call? I worry about you, being out in the world with your… difficulties.”   
  
Logan did his best to disguise the immediate groan at his mother’s way of mentioning his autism with a cough before doing his best to nip the topic in the bud without his mother ignoring him for not responding with the desired behavior, “I’m doing well, I’m ahead in my studies and I have made a friend.” so much for no migraine   
  
“Oh, that’s good I guess, just be sure this ‘friend’ isn’t just looking for someone to do homework for them. You don’t need that sort of influence.”   
  
Rubbing at his temple he rolled his eyes and instantly regretted it as a flash of pain shot through his face. gritting his teeth to avoid letting on he did his best to move the conversation forward so he could sleep the stress migraine away, “Believe me, mother, Patton does not want me to do his homework for him, we’re in completely different majors, my work would most likely grade lower than his even if he did want to cheat.”   
  
Anges hummed as though she didn’t really believe him “alright. Make sure it stays that way, keep an eye on his behavior. I expect you to move on if he starts doing anything unsavory or sinful.”   
  
“That would be difficult, we’re roommates.”   
  
“I’m sure you can swing a room change if necessary. Also, I need you to talk some sense into your brother about why he absolutely cannot wear a dress to the fundraising celebration this weekend. It’s completely inappropriate. There will be children there that already have so many problems, their therapy doesn’t need to be set back by andy’s unfortunate phase.”   
  
Ok, that was it, it was late, his head hurt, and he did not have the patience to listen to his mother’s transphobic rhetoric “Mother despite what you wish to be true, it will not harm a child to know that trans people exist, no matter if that child is autistic of allistic. If fact it would most likely be more harmful to them in the long run if they were kept unaware.” he stood and started pacing as his voice got louder without him realizing it. “Because unlike in your precious therapy the real world has a vast and interesting difference in people that no amount of communication cards or target behaviors could even come close to categorizing!”   
  
Unbeknownst to him, his angry rant had woken both of his roommates who were watching through his cracked door, disgruntled faces turning to concerned as they watched someone who had never shown any more of an emotion than slight grumpiness get more and more worked up   
  
His mother attempted to cut him off to reprimand him but he paid her no attention“I should know how confusing it is, I was 14 before I figured out that being anything but straight and Christian was an option! Thank your theoretical god that I wasn’t responding to the social part of treatment to the point where you figured it worthwhile to dump me in a public high school, or I suppose you view that as a mistake considering how angry you were when I not only figured out what being gay is but that I am!”   
  
His breath ran out and Agnes took that chance to respond just as heated “Logan Elijah Sanders, you do not speak to your mother that way! And keep your voice down, what if your friend hears!?”   
  
Catching his breath with a pained and angry huff he responded “as you mentioned before, I’m sure I could swing a room change.” and then hit the end call button so hard he was surprised the screen didn’t crack.   
  
Groaning he turned and spit the gum into the trash by his nightstand and saw that his roommates were standing in the doorway, both looking quite concerned.   
  
Virgil pushed the door all the way open when he was sure the call had ended, “ya know, I was gonna complain about being woken up but you look worse off then I felt, who were you yelling at?”

  
Logan sighed and rubbed at his temple, he must have woken them when he lost his temper. “ My mother, she’s… frustrating, sorry for waking you.   
  
Patton walked over holding some ibuprofen and a bottle of water, “we were kinda eavesdropping, sorry, but I noticed you rubbing at the side of your head and wondered if you needed something for a headache, if not just take the water, doesn’t hurt to be well hydrated.   
  
Gratefully he took the pills and downed half the water, “migraine actually, I’ve had them my whole life, my doctor says they’re triggered by stress.”   
  
“Oh! I have something for that, be right back.” Patton sputtered running across the hall to his room leaving a confused silence in his wake before returning a second later with a tiny white triangle pill “This is Imitrex, I call em headache triangles. They’re the only med that cuts my migraines.”   
  
He eyed the pill “is this prescription? You know, it’s illegal to share prescription medications.”   
  
Patton shrugged, “it’s a felony for a woman to open her husband’s mail or to go fishing alone on Sunday if their or a single man, plenty of stupid things are illegal in Montana.”   
  
Virgil snorted “why on earth do you know that? Patton just shrugged again, Virgil looked at him for a second before continuing, “come on the worst thing that could happen is an allergic reaction, unless you’re a narc.”   
  
Logan grumbled “peer pressure” before taking the pill and swallowing it along with the rest of the water before tossing the bottle into the trash and sitting back down on his bed. The clock read 10:30, he flopped back on his bed leaving his legs hanging off, “an hour and a half is too long to be on the phone with anyone, but especially that woman.” He glanced up at the two men standing awkwardly in his bedroom, “go ahead and sit if you would like although we should all head to sleep soon, the mediocrity of first-semester class starts anew with the sunrise.”   
  
Despite what he just said, both sat down Patton on the floor and Virgil in the desk chair, after a few minutes the meds had started to kick so he was able to sit up without half the room going white from the migraine aura,” I suppose you two would like to know what constituted the rude wake-up call.”   
  
“That’d be nice, but you don’t have to,” Virgil replied pulling his legs up into the chair   
  
Logan stood and began his nightly routine, putting his glasses in their case as he began telling the story of his mother splitting the family “about two years ago, my sister came out as trans to back me up when I came out as gay. We had both been in the closet since Kristen was pulled out of Christian school to watch over me when I was put into public school as punishment for not modeling the correct social behavior for a teen of my age, before that neither I nor my siblings knew that there was anything beyond gay or straight.” he paused to set out tomorrows clothing and retrieve some pajamas before continuing, “As you can guess from my rant, my mother did not take that well and would have disowned and kicked both of us out if not for my father, who stood up for us for the first time in our lives, she was calling to attempt to persuade me into making my sister dress like a man at the upcoming autism speaks fundraising event under the reasoning that it would harm the autistic children present.”   
  
  
  
He watched Patton visibly tense when he mentioned the hate group and hurried to make his position clear, not wanting to lose a friend due to his mother’s bigotry, “I feel the same way Patton and refuse to have anything to do with my mother’s fundraising efforts, as would my siblings if they were adults. Kristen only has six more months before she turns eighteen and despite my parent’s efforts already has plans of where to live. The plans between my brother, sister, and I have been to wait the two years for Alex to come of age and cut ties, although with my most recent interaction she may refuse to speak to me. thankfully I procured a full scholarship and as such don’t have to depend on my parents for tuition.”   
  
There were a few seconds of tense silence before Patton caught sight of the clock and sighed “shoot, I’ve missed my meds. Oh well, it’s only an hour late, sorry logan but I get pretty loopy after I take my meds so I gotta go to bed. Good luck with your mom and if you ever wanna vent I know lots about messed up family relationships” with that he stood, waved and walked into his room   
  
Virgil watched him go and then stood, walking over toward the door, “I should get some rest too, but the same goes for me, I may not have experience with family problems, but I know how much talking about stuff can help, lemme know.” he gave a little nod and turned to go into his own room.   
  
Even though he disliked being peer pressured, Logan’s head was feeling much better, and it was nice to have someone sympathize with him, maybe having friends was a good thing.   
  
He could get used to having someone on his side, or maybe two someones.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woooooo i managed to post twice in a row! let's hope this keeps up, my motivation to write is up again and I think it might be because of my med change. life has been chaotic but that's just the world's new normal now, I might add more notes later but I have a case of brain fog. 
> 
> the little snippet about stupid laws in Montana is true, and I, like Patton, do not know why I know them.
> 
> also I know that there hasn't been much regression in the story lately, there will be soon, most likely in the next chapter which is in the past again, but we're back to the past present past present pattern.  
love yall, thank's for sticking with me!
> 
> hi floof :3


	17. why does nothing ever go to plan?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megan arrives, makes some decisions and the world shifts for Patton yet again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeey, sorry for the hiatus... I had a depressive episode, and then I got really sick! bringing my total of COVID tests to a whopping two. I'm currently fighting off the mystery kidney infection that is the actual cause of me getting sick. more on that after the chapter :)
> 
> 🐈: CHAPTER WARNINGS :🐈  
yelling, hitting, (from a flashback night terror), mentioned surgical infection, mentioned hospital visit, crying, mentioned car accident, mentioned ICU stay, mentions of religious trauma  
bold = dream  
as always lemme know if I missed anything!

Mid-October 2014   
  
** _~~ The house was very cold, which was odd for the town they lived in, Patton shivered and watched his breath puff out in front of him as he shuffled his way out of bed and toward the coat closet. _ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _Opening the door he was surprised to see so many coats, belonging to many different ages. He dug through looking for one that would fit him, too cold to care about the tiny children’s coats he was knocking to the floor, finally pulling a coat that seemed to fit he was about to put it on when he heard his father’s voice_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _“What in the hell do you think you’re doing!?”_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _he stopped, reflexively dropping the coat as if it burned him and spinning around to face the voice so fast he slipped and landed roughly against the hardwood. Now that he’d turned around he could see a younger version of himself crouched over the floor frantically dabbing at the spilled grape juice that was rapidly seeping into the mat that was specifically put down to prevent spills from making it into the carpet. Crap. he was dreaming, that didn’t make him feel much better though, he was stuck here for however long until he jolted awake, which would seem like days._ ** ** _  
  
_ **

** _‘Why is it always this one?’ he mumbled to no one as he stood and put the coat he’d dropped on his shoulders even though it never did much to cut the chill. He sat on the couch that was always in the back of this particular memory, there were a few moments that frequented his subconscious, they were always the ones that had significant triggers in his waking life. Resting his head against the arm of the couch he resigned himself to re-experience the memory._ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _The part of him that was aware this was a dream was calm, mostly annoyed that he still had to deal with a now decade-old incident, knowing that as it progressed further whatever injury five-year-old Patton sustained he would feel as well. And that unless he got up to leave and find another unpleasant memory, once this one reached its end it would loop until he woke up. flinching as the first red handprint warmed the side of his face He sighed, waiting for the fingerprint bruises that shortly follow when his past self gets hoisted into the air.~~_ **   
  
  
_ Patton woke gasping as he fell from the couch having flailed too much for the narrow surface, his usual profanities being muffled by the blankets that fell on top of him, sitting up he felt around for his phone checking the time before flopping back into the pile of blankets and staring up at the ceiling, running his fingers over his cheek where the phantom pain of his dream was slowly fading. It was four am and his mom’s flight got in at five-thirty, so everyone was going to start waking up soon. Time to get ready, and clean the house a little so his mom wouldn’t use that to pick a fight with her sister, of course, that wouldn’t stop the fighting, but at least it would be something that couldn’t be spun around onto him. _ _   
_ _   
  
_

_ 6 am- _

_ Exhausted, Patton and his brother sat by the baggage return as they watched the people from their mother’s flight wander through. An attendant at the desk had informed them that the wheelchair-bound passengers would disembark last so they had to wait for all of the other people to take leave before an employee would bring them to the gate to meet their mom _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The atmosphere in the little group was a mixture of frustration and boredom. Remy was the only one in relatively good spirits, excited to have at least one thing back to normal. Although Patton wasn’t optimistic that things would be any better with her than when they left. It was a few days short of a month since the surgery, which was nowhere near the long 6-month recovery that the doctors had estimated. _

_ That meant that his mom would still be in pretty much the same state as the last time he saw her in person, and although he was pretty sure that his aunt and uncle wouldn’t allow her to go back to treating him so poorly, he knew that she had little to no impulse control or filter right now and that she hated her sister, he had no clue what had gone on in their upbringing to foster the one-sided anger, and no matter how many times he asked either sister he could never get a straight answer.  _

_ It had been a point of contention in their household quite a few times, as whenever anyone would bring up his aunt it would instantly put his mom into a bad mood and cause a litany of half disguised jabs about anything she could nitpick about her sister. Watching the anger in his mother’s face and the hurt in his aunts whenever he asked about it, made him hope that he and Remy wouldn’t end up with that kind of relationship, but with the awkward divide between them over the events of the last three weeks, that was seeming like a more believable future than ever before. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He was startled out of his thoughts by Remy kicking at his shoe and then pointing to the other end of the room where their mom had just been wheeled around the corner with one of the grumpiest looks he had ever seen on a human being. Well, there went the hope that she would have been in a good mood for at least a few minutes. As she was wheeled closer he could see the gauze haphazardly applied below her ear had was tinted orange, which most likely meant that she had an infection in her incision. That meant that instead of going back to his aunts where he could busy himself with the remaining chores and do his best to ignore his mother’s existence, they would be going to the er for who knows how long. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The little group stood and walked to meet Megan halfway, Remy ignoring their uncle’s half-hearted exclamation to walk and racing forward to give a very rare hug which seemed to bring a little bit of relief to Megan’s attitude until she made eye contact with Patton. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Pat don’t just stand there, push me so that this young man can get on to more important things.”  _

_ Patton could feel the attendant watching as he rushed over to the back of the chair keeping his eyes glued to the ground in front of the chair as the weird uncontrollable tears came back. Deciding to leave the conversation to his family as not to bring attention to that didn’t seem to work as he was stopped by Jacob putting his arm out in front of him, looking up to see him mouth “I got this, you go.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Nodding Patton made a break for the nearby bathroom to wait the tears out. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ 2 days later _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The car ride to the ER had been full of angry silence only broken by the occasional attempt to get out of it by Megan followed by a firm refusal to change their agreement by Amanda, which continued until Dan lost his temper and told Megan to “for christ’s sake, just shut up.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The doctor had prescribed antibiotics and an overnight stay in the hospital to make sure that nothing was going to go awry from the pressure difference of both the flight and the move from no elevation to high elevation. They’d stayed in with her for a while before going back to the house to finish tidying up and preparing a place for Megan to sleep in the sewing room.  _

_ When they came to pick her up she seemed to be in much brighter spirits and hardly said a negative word on the way home, turns out it was because while she was in the hospital she’d called her friend Alicia and told a skewed sob story version of the events that had transpired since October 3rd, which tugged on Alicia’s catholic guilt so much that she had offered to house them for the entirety of Megan’s recovery.  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ They were coming to pick them up tomorrow and drive them six hours to Alicia’s house. Right now though it was 4 am and Patton was laying on the couch trying to stop crying. He’d been crying off and on since his mom told them about Alicia’s generous offer. It seems that the period of pleasant numbness was over and he was back to his overly emotional baseline.  _

_ His mom and Remy were delighted with this turn of events, and yet again he felt like he’d been shoved to the backburner. His aunt had been in the process of getting him a real therapist, better meds, and maybe even an education. Now all of that was out of the window, Alicia was the one who had convinced his mom to stay with his father for so long, she also didn’t believe in mental illness, autism, or public schooling.  _

  
_ Patton didn’t really remember much about her, the last time they saw each other he had been five and she had come to Oregon to help his mom with the legal proceedings surrounding an accident his father had gotten into when he had rolled a diesel tanker drunk and ended up being sued by his work. Alicia had mainly been moral support and babysitting as his grandfather had thrown himself into the window in a hissy fit because the six week period of babysitting that his mom had needed when his father was in the ICU from the wreck had detracted from the attention the narcissistic asshole needed, so his grandma was too busy dealing with replacing the window and caring for their grandfather to watch two small neurodivergent kids and support their mom. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The two main things Patton remembered about Alicia that weren’t what he’d been told by his mom as the two kept in touch over the years, was that she was a horrible babysitter and that she’d yelled at him for fidgeting during their nighttime bible readings, and then continued to yell increasingly cruel things when he had reacted by covering his ears and rocking back and forth in what he now knew was his first panic attack. He wasn’t sure what it was with religious white women, but they seemed to instantly have a problem with him. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Needless to say, he wasn’t looking forward to the upcoming situation, not only was he terrified of Alicia, there was a whole unknown place and family to get used to for who knows how long. Eventually, he was able to settle into a fitful sleep filled with nightmares about being yelled at and going to church. _ __   
__   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really remember much of the last two months, I spent a lot of it sleeping. I had only just gotten out of this weirdly intense depressive episode when I started having trouble with walking and with more goddamn fuckin fatigue, then I got a cane and about a week later I got a "cold" which recently escalated and now I've had a fever for almost a week, not to worry I'm gonna schedule an appointment with my dr tomorrow, and my COVID test I got last week at the walk-in came back negative. but being asleep for so much of the day and being in too much pain to sit up for longer than to take vitals/bathe makes it hard to write on anything but a phone.
> 
> hopefully, now that I can sit up I'll have the motivation to write some more. we would have gotten farther in this chapter but I make it a rule to cut off around 2,000 words to keep chapter-length palatable, and the period in my life I'm basing this part of the story one hasn't really been processed yet so it's hard to write because I keep hitting memory blocks or subconscious panic issues
> 
> I know, excuses excuses  
anygay see you'll hopefully soon  
also, I just love all you guy's comments, they make my day and keep me from quitting, can you believe its been almost a year since I started posting!


	18. spicy deja vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patton has a bad time, logan is a smarty pants and starts figuring things out, and virgil says sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that roman will be in the story more soon!
> 
> bold text = flashback  
bold text + italics = google search
> 
> 🐈 Chapter Warnings 🐈
> 
> mentions of addiction, mild swearing, hospital mention, medication, stroke mention, PTSD, flashback, crying, implied past child abuse, anxiety, repression, echolalia, stemming
> 
> to avoid the flashback stop reading at the first line break and pick back up at the second one

Mid-October 2019  
  
Patton sighed as he shifted in the mildly uncomfortable bed to check the time again, the dull light from his phone screen in the pitch-black room temporarily blinding him and leaving a bright ‘2:00 am’ burned into his retinas for a few seconds as he rapidly blinked the discomfort away, that settled it, it was time to give in and take the Ambien. He usually made an effort to avoid using it given the huge history of addiction in his family, but he had class tomorrow.

He’d been trying to sleep for hours, getting up every thirty minutes to sit on the floor and doodle, trying his absolute best to practice sleep hygiene, many things were keeping him up, but surprisingly the main problem was that his brain had latched onto the chorus of the song that had been playing in the cafeteria…. Four days ago.

No matter what he tried he just couldn’t get the damn earworm out, he tried listening to the song, listening to a different song, writing the phrase over and over, even drawing a little poop emoji made out of bananas. Nothing had budged it. So now as he turned on the light and retrieved the Ambien bottle from its little hiding place high on the top shelf of the closet his brain had turned to verbal echolalia, 

he sang under his breath in a mildly pissed off tone, “This shit is bananas b-a-n-a-n-a-s, this shit is bananas b-a-n-a-n-a-s.” doing his best to balance on a little stack of textbooks to reach the shelf in the top of his closet. the benefit of being short was that if he tried to take another Ambien after forgetting that he’d already taken one, he wouldn’t have the coordination to stand on the books which was the only reason he’d chosen such an annoying hiding place.

He would like to avoid a repeat of the time hed accidentally taken 30mg because he forgot, three times, and ended up in the hospital because his mom had caught him while he’d been tearfully trying to share candy with his brother and mumbling about how the doorframes were squishy and thought he’d had a stroke.  
  
Virgil and logan would probably just assume he was high on something like Remy had, but it was better not to even have to worry about that.  
  
Finally having reached the little orange bottle he doled out one tiny white pill and despite his common sense saying that future him would be pissed that he couldn’t reach it, just chucked the bottle back onto the high shelf and hopped haphazardly off the little stack of books.

looking over to his nightstand he sighed seeing that his water bottle was empty. that meant putting on pants and leaving his room to go get some mildly chlorinated water out of the bathroom sink, all because Gwen Stefani wouldn’t shut up and let him sleep.

Hopefully, his roommates would be sound asleep, he couldn’t hear any movement, but he also didn’t hear any snoring. He was too tired to mask right now and would have a hard time getting himself to stop repeating the song out loud, which wouldn’t have been a problem if it was a song that fit with the happy innocent persona he had so carefully crafted to keep others at a safe distance away from finding out how messed up he actually was.  
  
What a rabbit hole that would be.  
  
Tapping the water bottle against his chest in time with the cursed song he slipped on a pair of sweats, went out into the little living room, and made his way to the sink, “this shit is bananas” he heaved a sigh and turned on the tap, “b-a-n-a-n-a-s.”  
  


he turned and had almost crossed the threshold of the tiny bathroom after filling his water bottle, still repeating the song, about ready to down the Ambien and finally get a break when he heard a surprised and very amused voice say, “oh my god, did you just fucking swear?!”  
  
Patton startled and looked up, spilling his water in the process, to see Virgil sitting on the back of the couch like a gargoyle holding a book in one hand, apparently having had trouble sleeping as well. Unfortunately, the tone of voice combined with the exhaustion and spill instantly threw him into a flashback, he vaguely heard a concerned noise from Virgil and felt himself flinch and hit the floor as the water bottle fell out of his hands, before losing his surroundings to the past

* * *

  
  
** _Sitting down in front of the tv with his grape juice and chicken nuggets Patton was excited to watch his favorite cartoon and had just started eating when he heard something spill behind him, he turned to see the beer bottle his father had been cradling against his chest in his sleep had finally tipped and spilled onto the couch. _ **

** _Knowing that his father would be waking as soon as he felt the cold spill against his leg he hopped up to grab the paper towels from the kitchen hoping to avoid a violent reaction by cleaning the spill without having been told._ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _Racing to grab the step stool to reach the counter he heard his father snort and shift on the couch. Patton was just reaching the living room when father woke and stood up, noticed the spill, and flung the now empty beer bottle against the wall._ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _Patton crept behind his quietly raging father and started dabbing up the awful smelling liquid when his father sighed_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _“Well, that’s ok” Patton froze as father paused to gently ruffle his hair, “sometimes spills happen, right pattie?” _ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _Breaking out of his scared pause Patton mumbled a quiet agreement before turning to take the paper towels back to the kitchen._ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _However in his rush to complete the task he wasn’t paying attention to where his feet were going, too focused on maintaining a safe distance from his father._ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _It was barely a tap, but it was enough to upset the glass of juice, it felt almost like time stopped as he felt the cold of the ice hit his foot, his brain already shutting down to emergency mode in preparation for the incoming threat. He dropped to the floor and frantically started shoveling ice back into the cup and wiping at the slowly spreading puddle, praying that his father was too drunk to notice… too late._ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _“What the hell do you think you’re doing!?”_ **

** _Patton felt more than saw his father grab his collar and squeezed his eyes shut waiting for the slap_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’ll clean it up, I didn’t mean to!”_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _But instead of a slap, he felt the hand at his neck fade and change to a gentle hand against his arm_ **

* * *

** _  
_ ** ** _  
_ ** ** _“_ ** Patton, you’re not in trouble, it’s just water. I need you to breathe, come on man lets breathe together”  
  
Patton didn’t open his eyes as he felt his hand being slowly pulled away from its defensive pose in front of his face and put against… something… or someone?  
  
The voice started up again, did he know this voice? It sounded so familiar.  
  
“There we go, ok now match me, deeeep breath in”  
  
He felt his hand raise and managed a shaky breath in  
  
“Good! And out like your blowing out a candle”  
  
After a few repeats he was getting the hang of it, and the mystery person let his hand drop. Patton ran his hands through his hair as the past faded and he slowly realized what was going on.  
  
Shit.  
  
He opened his eyes to see Virgil crouched on the floor in front of him just out of arms reach clearly unsure of what to do now that Patton was responding. Looking around Patton found that he had subconsciously backed himself into the corner between the bathroom sink and the door, he noticed the water spill was gone, at least the part that had made it to the floor. His pajama pants and shirt were wet and uncomfortable.  
  
The water bottle and tiny half dissolved Ambien pill had been placed on the counter and when he looked out toward the living room he saw logan chewing on the arm of his glasses looking very concerned and antsy  
  
When he noticed Patton watching he hurridly wiped the arm of his glasses on his shirt and stepped into the bathroom.  
  
Patton saw the hurt and confusion in both his roommates’ faces when the sudden move forward created an equally sudden move backward, there was no way to get out of this interaction without letting them know something, the exact thing he wanted to avoid. He felt trapped, both by the requirement to explain and by being literally cornered in a bathroom by two people who were both bigger and in a better state than he was.

He could feel the odd floaty feeling in the back of his skull that came before either a repeated flashback or a dissociative episode and decided to ignore the other two and focus on calming down enough to answer the questions and be able to remember what he’d said for when it inevitably came up again, the worst thing about being prone to dissociation was getting caught in a lie that he had no recollection of telling in the first place.  
  
The best way he’d found to snap himself back to the present that wasn’t harmful to himself was to do the 5 4 3 2 1 grounding technique, but he found that just pointing out the things for each sense, whether out loud or to himself wasn’t enough to keep him in the present, so he would fingerspell instead. Sight first, his eyes darted around the bathroom, D-O-O-R. One down four to go, the first two were always the hardest until his nervous system got the message and started bringing his heart rate and breath down. He made brief eye-contact with logan as he heard him half mumble, “Door?”  
  
S-H-I-R-T. Not time to freak out that Logan knows the sign, time to focus. F-O-O-T. In reality, it made sense that logan would know at least some sign with the small amount Patton knew about his childhood. T-I-L-E.  
  
Patton heard a noise of recognition come from Logan and then saw him slowly sit down next to Virgil, keeping his movements slow and smooth before quietly asking “are you doing a grounding exercise, Patton?”  
  
Glancing up at the mention of his name, he nodded. P-A-N-T-S. He readjusted and brought his knees down from his chest, in the process noticing how damp they were again he made a face W-E-T. He sniffed and wiped at his face T-E-A-R-S.  
  
His focus shifted when Logan and Virgil started quietly moving out into the living area  
  
“We’ll be right out here when you feel ready to talk, although there will be no hard feelings if you would rather save this conversation for the morning” with that Logan shut the door leaving a tiny crack, as if worried that shutting it completely would set Patton off again.  
  
It kind of did in a different way, growing up being taught that any display of negative emotion coming from a male was either abusive or weak had made it extremely hard for him to fully cry in front of anyone that wasn’t a therapist, so when he was in front of his roommates he had been leaking more than crying, as soon as the door was closed however he broke into the full-body shaking but silent sobs that would usually accompany a flashback, 

his stomach would hurt the next day from holding in the sounds, but even after working with dr. Picani for years his trauma response was still stronger than the cognitive exercises and him telling himself that he would be in less pain if he let himself make a sound. Oftentimes after a flashback, no grounding exercise would calm and focus him as much as sobbing for ten minutes and then settling his breathing while dabbing at his face with a cold wad of paper towels or toilet paper in this case.

He had just finished making sure his face looked normal enough to hide the fact that hed been crying more when he heard a sharp tap tap tap at the bathroom door, he caught a glimpse of his “I’m fine” mask in the mirror and struggled not to break it by grimacing at how much of a farse he was putting on, especially for people he was friends with.  
  
Opening the door revealed Logan obviously suppressing a stim holding a pair of dry pajamas, Patton took them and pretended not to notice the way Logan immediately adjusted his glasses and reached for his usually ever-present tie, before letting his hands drop awkwardly. “I was not expecting the texture of the sweatpants, I’ll have to add that to the ‘do not touch’ list.” he adjusted his glasses again “I figured you would be more comfortable in dry clothes.”  
  
Trying not to let himself think about how to have gotten fresh clothes, Logan would have had to go into his room, and was quite likely to have seen his pacifier sitting on his pillow from where he’d been trying to sleep, he mumbled his thanks and closed the door to change clothes and think of how to explain not only the flashback but the pacifier.  
  
As he was changing his clothes his mind was racing with possible lies and their pros and cons. He could say it was a part of his autism and that might fly, but barely. And he had a feeling that it would just spur logan on as a new part of the spectrum to learn about. He could say it was anxiety, but that most likely would be called out by Virgil who knew first hand what a panic attack looked like if the fact that his anxiety was considered a disability by the university was anything to go by.  
  
He could try to trust them. He could tell the truth.  
  
One more check in the mirror that he looked good enough, he never did, he held himself to impossible standards and them crumpled under the weight of them. Why not disappoint everyone else too.

When he opened the door to the bathroom Virgil and Logan were sitting next to each other quietly scrolling through their phones, although if you looked closer you would notice that Virgil was picking his nails and Logan was rocking side to side ever so slightly, they were worried.  
  
Patton sat in the little armchair across from them, “Sorry for waking you Logan, thank you both for your help. Do you have any specific questions or would you rather I just” He made a vague sweeping gesture, “Explain.”  
  
Virgil stopped picking winced and shoved his hands in his armpits, “I mean, I have questions but I don't know what to start with. I really didn’t mean to scare you, I was just surprised to hear you swear for the first time since I’ve known you.”  
  
Patton laughed a bit “I can start with that if you want?”  
  
Virgil shrugged and Logan put his phone away so He started explaining.  
  
“For the last four days the chorus of ain't no holler back girl has been playing in my head non-stop, It’s a common occurrence for me called Echolalia; usually it’s just in my head but sometimes when I get really tired it kinda tumbles outta my mouth too.” a round of yawning interrupted him momentarily, “I’m exhausted right now, and needed water to take my sleeping med to try to be able to not repeat that all day tomorrow.”  
  
Logan’s face shifted from concern to the recognition that only comes with experience “I once repeated the word Phantasmagoria over three hundred times, echolalia is one of the more annoying parts of neurodivergence.”  
  
Patton nodded, “it can be. Fortunately, it’s gone now.”  
  
Logan Adjusted his glasses in what Patton now recognized as a ‘socially acceptable stim’ before asking, “Patton, do you have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?”  
  
Well, it was now or never. It was honestly a relief that he’d figured it out, although, it didn’t make him feel any less vulnerable, so he just nodded, wishing that he was asleep instead of opening up to people. “Spilling things is a trigger for me. I probably wouldn’t have freaked out as much if I wasn’t so tired. It’s no one’s fault really, well at least no one here.”  
  
Despite Patton’s reassurenceVirgil still looked worried “Damn, that’s… not what I expected. I’m sorry for startling you, even if it was technically not my fault.”  
  
Patton just shrugged, “no hard feelings kiddo, do either of you have any more questions?”  
  
There was a split second where logan looked like he was going to ask something before he decided against it and shook his head, “I do not, and I would like to suggest that we all attempt to turn in for the night, as I know that we have classes in,” he looked at his phone “just under five hours.”  
  
Virgil yawned and nodded, “Yeah, I need to actually get some sleep, I might come up with a few more questions in the morning but for now I'm just glad you’re ok Patton.”  
  
Patton breathed a sigh of relief that the conversation had pretty much wrapped itself up with no mention of the pacifier or any other prying questions about who saddled him with such a common trigger an intense reaction. “Thank you both, I think I’ll actually be able to get some sleep now.”  
  
They all parted ways into their respective rooms, and while two of them fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow, one was restless and pulled up the web browser on his phone, typing in his last question,  
  
* ** _Adult pacifiers and PTSD treatment_ **.*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all, I'm back! I've been having a really hard time lately with both my mental and physical health so that has made finding motivation almost impossible.
> 
> I have a tentative diagnosis of fibromyalgia and I've been having trouble walking, but Medicaid approved a wheelchair so now I can roll around when I cant walk!
> 
> I also got put on some new meds that make things a bit easier, and calm my tics so that I can write without worrying about throwing my laptop.
> 
> the flashback and the echolalia both happened to me in the dorm at job corps, I hope I did it justice
> 
> for anyone wondering, I am autistic and have PTSD so a lot of the experiences I write about have direct influence from my experiences.
> 
> I also do the adjust glasses instead of flap hands thing.
> 
> thank you guys for sticking with me and for your nice comments!


	19. well, that escalated quickly.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More changes await at Alicia's house, only time will tell what kind but Patton's pretty sure it's not good.
> 
> 🐈: CHAPTER WARNINGS :🐈
> 
> child abuse, neglectful parenting, throwing up, mentions of disordered eating, hospitalization, suicidal thoughts, passing out, suicide attempt, physical assault, yelling, swearing, forced vomiting, imprisonment, religion, religious trauma, imprisonment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay two chapters in one month!
> 
> to avoid the suicidey stuff and the physical assault stop reading at the first line break and pick up at the next

November 2014-   
  
_ It was a long tense ride from his aunt’s house to the unknowns of Alicia’s, his mom and brother acted like he didn’t exist no matter how many times he asked to pull over at rest stops. It was painful, but not as painful as knowing that he was so close to getting actual care only to have it ripped away. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Eventually, he managed to curl up in the backseat and sleep, which was surprising as he was terrified of Alicia and her family. Her two kids were weirdly quiet, the daughter not creepily not speaking at all which was causing the already tense environment to be even worse. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He woke just as they were pulling into the driveway of an old craftsman house with a guest house about 700 feet to the right of it which was where his impoverished family would be staying. There were a lot of feelings swirling around in his chest as he wheeled his mother into the one-bedroom guest house. Frustration, resentment, fear, and anger filling him like a balloon. Once they got up to the second floor, they walked into the room where they'd all be sleeping. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ There was a queen-sized bed for his mom that looked more expensive than anything he’d ever slept in before, a big air mattress for Remy, and a tiny trundle bed in the corner of the room for him. It reminded him of the closet that Harry Potter slept in. like they wanted to hide him away and pretend he wasn’t a burden on their family. He wasn’t usually an angry person, but for some reason seeing what was set up for him compared to his family filled him with a wave of cold-burning anger. _

  
  


_ A tiny part of him was scared of that anger, scared of becoming like his father. Usually, his entire being was terrified whenever he spotted a habit or trait that could also apply to his father, he hated the shape of his nose, the canter of his voice, and the way he would silently fume. But this time he felt more indignant than scared. The indignation was further enforced at dinner when the conversation turned to the topic of favorite bible verses. He had tried to opt out by saying that he preferred hymns to verses, but that only spurred on the questioning. _

_ He couldn’t stomach much, probably for the best because one sip of the tap water sent him rushing to the bathroom to throw up. Sitting against the toilet he sighed, at least this meant he wouldn’t have so many calories. After the day he’d had it was almost peaceful. He looked at himself in the mirror as he washed his hands, he looked like a ghost, pale, gaunt, with dark bluish-purple circles under his eyes. watching as the few tears rolling down his face dropped onto the counter he couldn’t shake the resigned feeling that something terrible was gonna happen soon.  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The tears started falling faster as he stared at the sickly teen in the mirror who seemed to whisper into his ear “you deserve this. You’re a horrible person. They would be better off without you.” he dabbed at his eyes with some toilet paper and tried to wash his mouth out but instantly spit the water back into the sink. Stupid sensitivity, oh well, dying of dehydration couldn’t be so bad. He could ask for bottled water, but it seemed pointless. If no one was willing to pull over on the car trip for little things like the bathroom, there was no way that they would drive the 45 minutes into town specifically for him. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He excused himself and went back to the guest house to properly cry and then fall asleep for as long as possible.  _

_   
_ _ Two Days Later - _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Turns out dehydration was a very painful death. His tears clung to his face as he lay in the rock hard trundle bed, his muscles were spasming, his mouth felt dry and horrible, on top of the massive headache that he’d had since the night he threw up. At this point, he couldn’t even sit up properly without getting vertigo. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He heard Remy sigh and his mom shift and get out of bed, his mom hobbled over to the other side of the room to check on him. Patton had convinced everyone that he had the flu, it wasn’t hard to do as he did have a fever and couldn’t keep anything down. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Megan sighed “Patton honey, you have to drink something. You’re not doing yourself any favors by ignoring me.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Patton rolled over and sipped at the water before gagging and making to sprint to the bathroom but as soon as he stood up it was like a train was rushing past his ears and his vision turned staticky before he started falling, the last thing he heard before he passed out was his mom screaming. _ _   
_ _   
_ _   
_ _ The world would come into focus before drifting, he felt someone pick him up, heard something about fluids, a glaring light shined in his eyes, and a weird sense of moving but not moving at the same time. He wished his mom would turn off whatever hospital show she was watching so he could get back to sleep _ _   
_ _   
_ _ An hour later- _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The first thing to clue him in to the fact that it was him in the hospital was when he went to scratch an itch on the back of his hand and was met with pain as he shifted whatever tubing was taped there _ _   
  
_

_ It took what felt like an hour to open his eyes, his eyelids felt heavy, his whole body was sore. The nasal cannula was uncomfortable, but he knew enough about hospitals to know that if he was in bad enough shape to be on oxygen then trying to take it off would only draw the nurse’s attention. When he did finally get his eyes open the sudden influx of light made his head spin _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Oh thank the lord, you terrified me! What were you thinking!?” his mom grabbed the hand that wasn’t hooked to an iv and looked at him with a confusing mix of relief and anger _

_   
_ _   
_ _ He tried to focus his eyes on her but they kept rolling to the side, “wha? Can I have my glasses please.” he readjusted as she handed him his glasses “Why am I in the hospital?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ She looked at him with disbelief that quickly became mixed with anger “Oh, I don’t know, maybe dehydration?!” she leaned back in her chair before grabbing his wrist and leaning into his face, angrily whispering “You’re such a spoiled brat, I just got away from social workers and now we’re right back at square one. Now they know where we are, hopefully, they don’t overstep and take you two again.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ That was the final straw, Patton ripped his wrist out of her grasp and moved out of her reach looking over at the tv that was playing some singing competition, he had been hurt by one parent when he was too small to stop it, he wasn’t gonna roll over and take it now “I would rather be bounced from foster home to foster home than slowly and painfully die with you because your crazy friend is too scared of driving downtown to buy me bottled water” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ His mom scoffed, “wow, if that’s how you feel I’m sure you won’t mind being alone.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He watched as she unsteadily walked out of his room, all of her fire and brimstone attitude lost in the awkwardness of her steps.  _

_ As she was leaving, a social worker took the opportunity to talk to him without his mom. She was a short woman with blonde hair and a disagreeable look on her face. Patton wasn’t in the mood to deal with any of this, but he did his best to be polite as she grilled him about what had transpired since his mom’s surgery. He didn’t hide anything and when she asked if he was being neglected he told the truth, not that it helped.  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The hospital discharged him a few hours later with a referral to a psychiatrist, several bottles of water, and the stern warning to his mom that if they missed the psychiatric appointment, or he ended up back in the hospital, child protective services would get involved. _

_ The ride home was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Patton felt better now that he’d been given almost two liters of fluids, but he had passed indignant into full-on angry. He was done, there was no doubt in his mind that when they got back to the guest house, he was going to take all of his pills and be free of this abuse forever, whether through death or some other means. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He had played the part of a doting son for so long, and been shown nothing but malice, as he got out of the car all of the things he could have had been running through his mind taunting him, he stomped through the house as the tears started to fall, his thoughts now fixed on taking the newly filled bottle of Prozac in the medicine cabinet. _

_ He closed the bathroom door and turned on the shower and opened the medicine cabinet staring at all of the various pills before snatching his bottle, weighing it in his hand. It was such a small thing to have such a big impact, 60 little pills that would change everything. Just as he was about to open it his mom knocked on the bathroom door _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Patton, honey, we need to talk about what happened at the hospital.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ He rolled his eyes and tried to sound cheery and unaware, “Can I get the hospital smell off of me first?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ His mom sighed “Fine, but make it quick.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ That gave him about fifteen minutes before she would bug him, not ideal but killing yourself wasn’t an ideal situation in the first place. He sat down on the toilet and opened the bottle, pouring a handful of pills in his hand with a kind of morbid fascination. _ _   
  
_

* * *

_ As he was shoving them in his mouth the door opened, he was sure to have locked it this time around but it was an old house, the kind with one skeleton key to lock everything but the front door. As he hurriedly cracked open the hospital water, Alicia's husband and two other large men rushed into the bathroom, one of the men grabbed onto his arm but he'd already swallowed a majority of the pills. alicia’s husband shoved his fingers into his mouth but Patton swiftly bit down on them and the group quickly shifted their goals to trying to drag him out of the bathroom _ _   
  
_

_ The taller one grabbed his ankle and pulled him to the ground, knocking the wind out of him, as the other two rounded behind him and pulled his fingers free from where they’d rooted themselves to the bottom of the bathroom counter _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Another twenty seconds of scuffling and gasping and they had hold of all his limbs. The man by his face was panting hard as he shouted “stop fucking struggling!” _

* * *

  
_they had to have done this before with the calm coordination and the way they all seemed to know when Patton was done with the struggle. They carried him out of the bathroom and set him into his mom’s wheelchair handcuffing him to the armrest. The men walked out of the room and Alicia walked in, crouching in front of him holding an emesis basin and a tiny bottle__  
__  
__“Steve tells me you swallowed some pills before they got to you, we can’t have you dying so we’re gonna use this epicac and have you yack those up into here”__  
__  
__Patton just glared at his feet, he wasn't above biting more fingers, He just had to hold off until the pills dissolved enough to make him sick. The shock of his situation had rendered him nonverbal, which was unfortunate as he would love nothing more than to curse a rare blue streak and tell her how he was sure she was going to hell. __  
__  
__He recoiled as Alicia grabbed his face, all of his previous experiences screaming at him to give in and avoid further hurt, his senses already numbed to soften the inevitable blows. Alicia kept a hold on his face and calmly kept talking as if they were merely discussing what to have for dinner, “I'm going to give you till the count of three, 1. 2.”__  
__  
__She never got to three, despite his earlier fire, Patton had been through this routine enough times when his dad had caught him eating ‘more than his share’ to know that fighting was only gonna end in him crying and covered in vomit, he opened his mouth and shut his eyes tight in preparation for the bitter taste of epicac, instantly gagging when she swiped some onto his tongue. He threw up for a good three minutes before she offered him some water to swish with shushing him like she was comforting an upset baby. Patton hated her, it took a lot for him to hate someone but Alicia had quickly risen to the top of that list__  
__  
__He only opened his eyes when he felt the chair start moving, he was wheeled into the main house down the hall and past the living room where his mom was crying on the couch being comforted by Remy and a priest, an odd image but a fleeting one as they rounded the corner and wheeled into the guest bedroom. Patton’s roiling stomach dropped when he saw the empty room, there was nothing but a twin mattress, and a bottle of water on the floor. The room had obviously been used for whatever they were doing to him before, the closet doors had been taken off and he could see scratch marks where someone had etched tally marks into the closet wall.__  
__  
__He was snapped out of his thoughts by Alicia's hand waving in front of his face before she crouched in front of him and started to undo the cuffs, surprisingly confident that he wouldn’t try to get away.__  
__  
__He rubbed at his wrists and watched as she did a once over of the room, probably checking for anything he could hurt himself with before she sat on the mattress, “Welcome to your new room! This was Abigail's room while Father Samuel treated her.”__  
__  
__He spaced out while Alicia kept talking, her daughter Abigail had been a troubled kid, he'd been told that she was like him and had to go to a hospital to get better, he never would have guessed that they had done something like this.__  
__  
__Patton tuned back into the one-sided conversation when Alicia stood and made to leave, “I’ll let you get situated and calm down, Megan mentioned the demon takes your voice when you get upset, and after the fight you put up I'm sure that this would count as upsetting.”__  
_ _  
___It took quite a while for him to get up after the door had been closed and locked, he was still trying to process the shock of the whole ordeal. They must have thought he was possessed, that would make the priest being there make more sense. He shakily moved to the closet to examine the scratch marks, a familiar haze of panic taking over as he realized there were way more than he’d been able to see from the wheelchair. He half-collapsed as the panic attack overtook him eventually passing out against the scratched wall, tearstained and exhausted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my goodness does it feel good to have that chapter done, this story is helping me process so much. it was hard to write because a lot of the experience is really triggering and I don't remember much.
> 
> I might come back and add more notes later but right now I'm too tired from being awake all day, I had a dentist appointment :/
> 
> thank you all for reading, I can't believe it's already been a year. so much has changed in the world 2019 feels like a fever dream.


	20. family, friends, and foibles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanksgiving is a prime time for dysfunction, and honestly who isn't at least a bit dysfunctional.
> 
> 🐈: Chapter warnings :🐈  
underage drinking, disassociation, mentions of being high, panic meds, anorexia mention, cancer mention, implied past child abuse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooo I know I totally said I was gonna take a break from posting but I finished a chapter and I hate just having it sit and wait.  
nothing too bad in this chapter and we finally get more roman and some picani.
> 
> I like the way this chapter turned out even though it took its own path away from my original plans

Sitting in the little bland waiting room of his therapist’s office Patton was always struck with the thought of how different the waiting room was from the actual office, when he had brought this up at their first appointment Emile had made it clear that it was a boundary that his secretary had set, not his personal choice. But that didn’t put a damper on either Patton’s or Picani's relationship with Margie, it was notoriously difficult to dislike the woman. Patton had been very nervous, almost skittish coming to a new therapist when he was 15, but Margie had nearly instantly calmed him down. She reminded him of his grandmother and had warned Emile to go a little easy on the intro.

Now almost five years later as Patton sat absent-mindedly rocking back and forth in time with his music Margie was folding a paper crane as she ate her sandwich like she did every Tuesday at noon since Patton had taught her how on his fourth visit. 

The cranes were a compromise to the serious tone that Margie insisted was necessary for her workspace and brought a cute pop of color to the waiting area, the little jar on her desk was filled with mini versions of the cranes on the curtain behind her desk and if you unfolded them you would find encouraging sayings and cognitive behavioral therapy tips, several of which had therapy themed puns that Patton had come up with. 

Margie looked up from her crafting, “Hey Patton, do you have a pun for this crane?”   
  
  
Patton paused his music and thought for a minute, “I know, what do you call ground beefs therapist?” Margie motioned for him to continue, “hamburger helper”

  
Patton smiled as Margie laughed, it was always nice when people liked his puns.    
  
As Margie was writing the pun down dr. Picani came out to the waiting room, smiling as bright and cheery as his cotton candy-colored tie, “You ready for our session?”   
  
Patton nodded and followed Emile into his bright stuffed animal-filled office. Patton enjoyed his sessions with Emile most of the time, they had only had one or two really bad sessions, and it was always PTSD related not therapy related.   
  
Patton sat down on the plush loveseat grabbing a kitty squishmallow to hold through the session, letting himself stim as emile sat in the chair opposite him with his steven universe mug   
  
They sat there for a minute to let Patton get his thoughts in order, after so many sessions they had come up with a pretty stable routine, come in, help Margie with the crane, sit down, and then talk about whatever for an hour.   
  
Recently the sessions had been about his roommates and his classes, less about working through trauma and more venting.    
  


Emile set his mug on the little side table and picked up his notepad, “So, do you how do?”   
  
Patton fiddled with the ear of the stuffie in his lap for a moment, thinking about the flashback he’d had in front of his roommates, “Um, I had a flashback in front of Virgil and Logan two days ago. They were kind and understanding but I’m still kinda anxious about it.”   
  
Emile nodded “Because you're nervous that they think you’re weak? Or you’re scared of them being nosey and finding out about your regression?”   
  
Patton thought back to the spike of panic in his chest when he had thought Logan had found his pacifier, from the reaction to his flashback he couldn’t see them holding PTSD against him but you can never anticipate the reaction to regression. “More worried about the regression. I mean it took me two years to tell you about it.”   
  
Emile leaned back in his chair thinking for a moment before replying, “well, they had a pretty good reaction to the flashback right?” Patton nodded, waiting for Emile to finish before he aired his concerns “did I ever tell you that I’ve worked with other age regressors? You would be surprised how common regressive coping is. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them had heard of it before.”   
  
For some reason that scared Patton more than no one knowing. What if they had heard about the sexual side of the regression community and they thought that he was a pedophile like his father. When he had brought that up in the past, emile had dismissed it saying that he didn't seem like that kind of person even before you learned about his past. It did little to calm his racing mind, however, as all he could think about were the times that the exact worst fear had come true.    
  
The conversation kept meandering on for another thirty minutes, but Patton kept zoning in and out, during one of these zone outs he tuned back in to picani’s concerned gaze.   
  
“Patton, I hate to snap you out of whatever train of thought you were having, but our time is unfortunately up. Make sure to call me if you need to. Have a good thanksgiving weekend.”   
  
Patton distractedly wandered out of the counseling building and through the downtown streets back to his dorm. He liked having friends, and he hated the feeling that he was lying to them. But he couldn't bring himself to tell them. He noticed that he had wandered into Target while he was thinking about everything. Funny how dissociating could feel like teleporting.   
  
As he walked toward the dollar bins he saw a familiar person crouched down restocking the shelves humming something.   
  
“Hey roman, how are you doing?”   
  
Roman startled and pulled his earbuds out looking around until he saw Patton, “Thank the heavens, I thought you were my supervisor. I'm not supposed to have my earbuds in but restocking is such drivel without a soundtrack.” he stood and laid his earbuds over his shoulders, “I'm doing pretty well, how about you? You look less fabulous than usual if I may say so.”   
  
Patton laughed a bit, what a way to say someone looks like crap, “I’m okay, I just had an… interesting therapy session is all.”   
  
  
“The holiday blues? I swear you and Microsoft nerd are practically moping” Roman paused, thinking about something when inspiration struck, “I should come over to your dorm, bring a board game or something as kinda a holiday break of our own, maybe get you guys back into the holiday spirit!”   
  


“I’ll run it by Logan. He doesn't have any afternoon classes so he should be free, but I think Virgil’s got a long lecture, so I won’t see him until late.”   
  
Roman waved him off “Oh don't worry, ill text Mr gloom and doom right now” roman pulled out his phone and started typing crouched behind the dollar bins to presumably avoid the manager catching him with his phone which was honestly making Patton a little nervous, but judging by the mini fist pump the text conversation went well.   
  
“Panic at the everywhere’s in, provided there are refreshments.” roman wiggled his eyebrows with a mischievous look on his face, “Lucky for us I have a few friends over 21.”

Patton’s stomach turned at the mention of alcohol, but he just put on a fake smile and nodded. Roman didn't know about his past and it was normal for a college student to have some parties, or at least that was what he told himself.   
  
Before Patton could say anything roman cut in, “well, it was good to see you, but I gotta get back to things so I don't get in trouble, see you later, about six”   
  
With that they parted ways, Patton lost in thought once again, hopeful that he could convince Logan to change his routine to come to hang out with them.   
  
  


Several hours later-   
  
  
  
It had taken a surprisingly small amount of coaxing to get logan to join them. His stipulation was that they stayed away from poker.   
  
They were all sitting on the floor around a game board playing sorry, roman and Virgil were two drinks in while Logan was very slowly sipping on his first. Patton had opted out of the drinking, telling the others that he couldn’t drink with the meds he was on. Which was technically true and a wonderful excuse to not have to explain his real reason for abstaining.

Unknown to anyone else he had taken his panic med because thinking about underage drinking and the consequences if they got caught had sent him into a tizzy, so he might as well have had four drinks with how laid back and loopy the med made him.   
  


“Ha, king me!” Roman exclaimed as he maneuvered his final piece into home   
  
Logan rolled his eyes, “That turn of phrase makes no sense in this context, roman.”    
  
“Winning feels more glorious when there's something to say” roman shrugged, moving to put the game into the waiting box.   
  
Virgil chuckled, “Now that that's over what are we gonna do next? We only had the one game and we’re not allowed to play any of the fun card games''   
  
“We could play charades, or never have I ever? I like those games, I’m good at them.” Patton said as he handed roman the leftover cards that had been scattered when roman lost the last round of sorry.   
  


“Oh man I haven’t played never have I ever since high school, sounds as good as any '' Virgil said popping open another drink.   
  
Logan situated himself from the floor to the armchair, “I’ve never played this game before, would someone care to explain the rules”   
  
“Wow, how can you get all the way to college without playing, its like a high school staple. You hold up five fingers and go around the circle, everybody taking turns to say never have I ever and then something they’ve never done.” roman held up a hand miming putting down fingers “And if you have done the thing you put a finger down.’   
  
Patton jumped in on the explanation, “Like if I say never have I ever graduated high school, all the players who’ve graduated have to put a finger down, and the last one with fingers up wins.”   
  
  
Logan looked unimpressed “Is there a point to this whole game?   
  
Patton shrugged, “not really, other than fun and getting to know each other, so are we playing?”   
  
Roman and Virgil nodded, and with a bit of hassling Logan also agreed.   
  
Patton tucked his chin and flapped his hands, panic meds stopping the usual anxiety at letting people, besides marina, see him actually stim.   
  
When Patton opened his eyes roman was looking at him with concern, “What was that? Are you okay?”   
  
If Patton hadn’t been loopy he would have tried to brush the whole thing off and pretend he didn’t know what roman was talking about, but he was among friends and the other two had seen him have a full-on breakdown, so sharing this part of himself with roman was tiny in comparison   
  
“Oh, the flappy thing? I do that when I’m excited. I’m totally ok.”   
  
Roman tipped his head and bluntly asked “Why? It looked painful.”   
  
Logan interrupted before Patton could explain, “The flapping is simply one way of stimming. When an autistic brain gets overwhelmed with any strong emotion, it turns that emotional energy into a movement to regulate itself,” he adjusted his glasses, “everyone stims at times, autistics just stim more often and more noticeably.”   
  
Roman paused and looked from logan to Patton, “You’re autistic? You don’t seem autistic.”   
  
Patton looked at logan with a look of ‘neurotypicals am I right.’ “yes, I’m autistic. I just pretend to be your version of normal to avoid bullying.” Patton looked at roman with a mix of calm amusement and pity, “for the record, most autistic people will be upset if you say they don’t look autistic. It’s a spectrum, were not all like Sheldon from the big bang theory.”   
  
Roman looked down into the mouth of his beer “sorry, I didn’t mean to offend, I’ve never met an autistic person before you so I don’t know the etiquette.”   
  
Patton laughed, “it’s no biggy. Thank you for the apology, and you’ve actually met two autistic people, right logan?”   
  
Logan nodded and Romans jaw dropped before he turned to Virgil who put his hands up   
  


“Hey don’t look at me, I just have anxiety. Are we gonna play or what?”   
  
  
Everyone put a hand up and the game began, it went through a few rounds of easy things like ‘never have I ever, had the favorite color blue’ and ‘never have I ever been skydiving’   
  
“Never have I ever been to elementary school,” Patton said and smiled when everyone put a finger down   
  
Roman shook his head and finished his drink, “how do you keep winning, I mean who hasn't been to elementary school”   
  
Patton smiled but it didn’t look genuine. The kind of smile that doesn’t reach the eyes. No one was sober enough to catch it, “I was homeschooled until my mom got cancer.“ he looked down at his lap “Then I just sorta… stopped.”   
  
When he looked up they were all looking at him, varying degrees of concern and pity in their eyes   
  
Virgil cleared his throat breaking the brief silence that had taken over the room “that sucks, I’m sorry.”   
  
Patton shrugged, “it’s in the past.”   
  
Logan looked at his phone screen, “it’s late and I have to get up early to get to my parents on time.”   
  
Roman rolled his eyes, “stop moping specs. It’s just Thanksgiving dinner.”   
  
Patton sighed, “ugh eating.”

That garnered him some weird looks, and if he hadn’t still been zooted on Klonopin he never would have blurted “I have anorexia.” there was an awkward pause as he realized what had just popped out of his mouth, “well this was fun, I’m going to bed goodnight!” he all but spat and raced to his room   
  
“That was weird… I guess that’s my cue to leave before it gets too late, don’t want to be bitched at by my roomie”   
  
  
Roman got up scooping up the empty beer cans and shoving them in the little trash can before awkwardly drifting toward the door slightly wobbly, waving he set off in the cold November night.   
  
Virgil flopped backward onto the floor staring up at the popcorn ceiling “first the flashback, now anorexia. Do you get the feeling that pat’s hiding some things from us? I mean it’s not like I need to know everything, but it’s weird right?”

Logan finished off his one beer, “I agree, I would like to be a good friend to him and distrust gets in the way of that, but it seems we won’t have to wait long to find out as secrecy may not be maintainable for him.”   
  
Virgil hummed in buzzed agreement, rolling over and haphazardly getting up, “well nothing’s gonna change tonight so I’m gonna sleep.”

  
  


They separated and laid down both having their own thoughts and questions about Patton’s sudden confession and retreat. Eventually, they fell asleep, Virgil resting peacefully but Logan having a hard time staying that way.

He woke feeling conflicted, he wanted to believe that his feelings about Patton were just friendly, but hed felt this before. The kind of infatuation that felt the same as the crush he had in 9th grade. He felt silly, Patton obviously didn’t see anything in him, hell, he didn’t even know if he was into guys. yes, it was better to just stay friends and hope this crush would stay secret. He could be a good friend without letting it slip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the nice comments, I'm very thankful for the patience. 
> 
> the group home is going well, my roommate is weird and kinda scary but not to the point that it causes problems thankfully
> 
> poor Logan, hes supressing so many things.


End file.
